]]>Note from the editor: On the 20th anniversary of the Jobs at Intel website, it’s only fitting you hear from the person who created, and still owns, our career site, and our guest blogger today: Teresa, the Web Product snad Services Manager for Intel’s Talent Enabling Solutions team aka the magic behind our online employer presence. You last heard from Teresa as she gave a special tribute to one of our teammates. I feel a little strange introducing Teresa’s post because, well, it’s about me. It’s with mixed emotions that I share, mostly excitement with a cup of fear and a smidge of sadness—I’m leaving Intel. Today is my last day in the office as I embark on a new journey. I have this thirst to see the world and the time has come for me to follow that thirst. I’m not certain what the future holds in store for me, but I’m taking a leap of faith (or sail of trust?) to see what’s out there. First up: a cross-Atlantic journey on a boat from Israel to the Bahamas. I’ll miss my Intel family (yes, family—what else do you call a bunch of fun-loving, hard-working, incredibly smart and caring people?) but I know that the friendships and relationships that have been cultivated in the cubes and over calls are ones that extend far beyond the workplace. Intel will always hold a special place in my heart and life—and before I get too sappy, I could always be back! But enough from me, Teresa wanted me to share this with all of you.

We often find ourselves at a cross roads. Opportunities open and decisions are made that changes our path and brings new adventures to explore. In our work-life, our team mates become family, and here at Intel our family is large and diverse. Soon we will be saying goodbye to a very special member of the Jobs@Intel blog family. Sejal Patel has been the leader of this blog since we started many years ago. She has been our Social Media strategist extraordinaire – taking the Intel Talent team into the world wide social stratosphere with gusto. But now Sejal has found an opportunity too great and too exciting to pass up and will be leaving Intel for new adventures.

Change is a part of every work environment and at Intel change is consistent. We change projects, managers, jobs, work teams, even our careers but always with the knowledge that at Intel you have the support and trust to take the risks change always brings. Even leaving Intel to explore new opportunities is valued within our company as our culture values the individual. To grow sometimes means leaving.

Sejal started at Intel a little bit over 5 years ago. She and I began working together almost from her first day. She brought a breath of fresh perspective and fabulous new ideas. She has never lacked for enthusiasm. Sejal has made friends with almost everyone she has met – which when I write this sounds like a cliché. But with her it is absolutely true. Her zest for life and learning is palpable. She wants to know you, know your family, your kids, your favorite meal, your best moments and she supports you when you need help or when you just need a sounding board. She has done this with all of her Intel family and has been a wonderful co-worker. From her love of cupcakes, to her travel stories, her beloved Canada and her weird Hockey obsession, Sejal spreads fun all over. There is no task she wouldn’t tackle. No problem she wouldn’t try to fix. Intel’s a “great place to work” value is probably a personal slogan for her. I wouldn’t be surprised if she tattooed it on her arm.

Last time I wrote on this blog was to say goodbye to another team mate. Seems to be my subject expertise. But in Sejal’s case it seems most appropriate since this blog has been built with Sejal’s leadership and vision. She has coached bloggers and helped create an editorial direction. We will continue with what she has built and hope we can prove to her we are worthy to care for what she created.

Working and growing a career sometimes means you have to change course. Intel is the kind of place where you feel empowered to make changes in your career. Sejal is off on a new adventure that will take her far away but her Intel family will be cheering for her. We’ll live her adventure through the inevitable Facebook posts, Instagram photos, Vine videos and through her texts and calls back home.

Bon voyage Sejal! Go catch the boat. I’ll never eat a cupcake without thinking of you. I promise to take good care of what you started. I will pay it forward. I’ll be cheering for you and secretly hope you find your way back to Intel.

Be well, laugh lots, have fun and keep sharing your joy with everyone you meet. Thank you for everything you have done to make Intel better, to make our team stronger and for your commitment to your friends and to your extended Intel family.

]]>http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2014/04/16/intel-employees-ode-sejal/feed/1A Tribute to Women Who Inspire (from Annette)http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2014/03/30/tribute-women-inspire-annette/
Sun, 30 Mar 2014 14:08:03 +0000http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/?p=2265Note from the editor: In honor of International Women’s History Month, Zella, our Women’s Initiative Program Manager, has connected with some of the many inspirational women at Intel to ask about their role models. We’ve heard from Sylvia, Stephanie and … Read more >

]]>Note from the editor: In honor of International Women’s History Month, Zella, our Women’s Initiative Program Manager, has connected with some of the many inspirational women at Intel to ask about their role models. We’ve heard from Sylvia, Stephanie and Marcie so far. Next up, we’d like to introduce you to Annette. Catch up on the other posts here.

Annette will reach her 14-year milestone at Intel in May 2014—which means she’ll be eligible for her second sabbatical! During her time, she has been an internal communications manager and partners with General Managers to align employees to the strategies of the business unit, Intel corporate direction and the leaders’ key messages. She is a native of New Mexico and began her career in Fab 11 but is now part of the Employee Communications group and resides in Arizona.

“My role model and mentor is a woman named Nancy. She’s now retired but was an Executive Director for a non-profit agency where we both worked. She mentored me in my career for 12 years and coached me personally. She is still my mentor today. Nancy has all the attributes of an outstanding leader, but what inspired me most—her ability to dream big and then turn these dreams into reality. She truly emulated and lived each day making the impossible, possible. No goal seemed too big, or vision too grand. She set her sights high with incredible vision, led teams to success and she did it with uncompromising integrity and class. She is truly an inspiration. She had high expectations of me and coached me until I reached my goals – both personal and professional. These goals were not always easy to attain, and there were times when I just wanted to throw in the towel. But Nancy was always excellent at putting things in perspective and being “the voice of reason.” She is my advocate and my best cheerleader. She is a role model who I admire most.”

That’s a wrap from our inspirational women—thank you to all of these wonderful woman for sharing their role models with us. Who inspires you? Let us know in the comments!

]]>A Tribute to Women Who Inspire (from Marcie)http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2014/03/26/tribute-women-inspire-marcie/
Wed, 26 Mar 2014 14:00:20 +0000http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/?p=2263Note from the editor: In honor of International Women’s History Month, Zella, our Women’s Initiative Program Manager, has connected with some of the many inspirational women at Intel to ask about their role models. We’ve heard from Sylvia and Stephanie … Read more >

]]>Note from the editor: In honor of International Women’s History Month, Zella, our Women’s Initiative Program Manager, has connected with some of the many inspirational women at Intel to ask about their role models. We’ve heard from Sylvia and Stephanie so far, next up, we’d like to introduce you to Marcie. Catch up on the other posts here.

Marcie on the left with her sister Marnie on the right.

Marcie has been a financial analyst with Intel since July 2012. Her responsibilities include valuation of Intel’s raw materials inventory account and cost saving efforts related to holding inventory. She holds a BA in Accounting from Washington State University and an MBA from Arizona State University. When we interviewed her, she told us about her sister, Marnie, who also works at Intel. Marnie joined Intel eight years ago and is the mobile team lead for Intel’s Burn In Development team. In her role she has the exciting challenge of developing and deploying technology, equipment, and processes to Intel’s assembly/test high volume manufacturing sites to support the Burn In reliability testing of Intel’s CPU processors. Marnie holds a PHD from the University of Washington in Materials Science and Engineering.

“My sister Marnie is my role model. She has a PhD in Material Engineering and a successful career at Intel. She showed me that women can be smart and successful. That a woman can do anything she wants and can achieve anything if she works hard. My sister has accomplished a lot with her education and career and she never let anything stand in her way. She inspired me to work hard so that I could achieve the things I wanted educationally and in my career. I know that because she was successful, then I could be successful, too. She has always encouraged and supported me to accomplish my goals. Any time I need support she is there.”

]]>A Tribute to Women Who Inspire (from Stephanie)http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2014/03/23/tribute-women-inspire-stephanie/
http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2014/03/23/tribute-women-inspire-stephanie/#commentsSun, 23 Mar 2014 13:52:21 +0000http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/?p=2257Note from the editor: In honor of International Women’s History Month, Zella, our Women’s Initiative Program Manager, has connected with some of the many inspirational women at Intel to ask about their role models. Catch up on the other posts … Read more >

]]>Note from the editor: In honor of International Women’s History Month, Zella, our Women’s Initiative Program Manager, has connected with some of the many inspirational women at Intel to ask about their role models. Catch up on the other posts here.

Meet Stephanie, a program manager in Intel’s Talent, Transformation and Diversity organization. Stephanie joined Intel 14 years ago and spent most of her time as a people manager in Intel’s manufacturing division before recently switching groups and joining the Human Resources organization. A professional leadership coach with a passion for helping others maximize their true potential by leveraging their unique strengths, Stephanie is also a wife to a wonderful husband, and mother to two energetic young children.

“My role model is my mother, Della. She worked at Intel Arizona in Human Resources for 25 years. My mother has inspired me in countless ways and continues to inspire me on a daily basis. From her humble yet nurturing beginnings in rural Georgia, she used what little she had to dream big. As a child, she spent a year in a full body cast, which meant she watched a lot of TV. But TV wasn’t just a way to pass time—she drew inspiration from All My Children’s Erica Kane and knew she could make more of herself. Even then she thought that a dream come true would be to work for minimum wage in a nearby town. Instead her dreams led her to travels across the country, receiving awards from presidents and serving on boards with CEOs, academic thought leaders, and the like, along the way. What truly inspired me was more than my mother’s professional and material success; it was her impact on others. Though it has been almost 10 years since she retired, I continue to meet people in the halls of Intel whose lives she has touched. She put her heart and soul into everything that she did. As a Relocation Manager, she made personal visits to families to ensure that they were settled in and made connections within the community. As a Workforce Development Manager, she would talk to the parents hesitant to send their children across the country to the Arizona desert for the summer to ensure they could further their engineering education and obtain work experience. As a Diversity Manager, she worked with an underserved school to form the Intel Adopt-A-School Program and earned an Intel Achievement Award for her efforts. I still remember the look on the faces of the students at the school as they received new books, computers, and had the chance to meet NBA starting players as a result of the Intel program. She always had a larger purpose than what her professional quarterly objectives stated and was a change agent within Intel. Her example inspires me to take risks and make positive changes.”

]]>http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2014/03/23/tribute-women-inspire-stephanie/feed/2A Tribute to Women Who Inspire (from Sylvia)http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2014/03/18/tribute-women-inspire-part-1/
Tue, 18 Mar 2014 22:27:04 +0000http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/?p=2250Note from the editor: While Old Man Winter hasn’t quite left us yet, we’ve started to experience the sun (and rain) that comes with spring. Along with the transition of winter to spring, March is dedicated to pay tribute to … Read more >

]]>Note from the editor: While Old Man Winter hasn’t quite left us yet, we’ve started to experience the sun (and rain) that comes with spring. Along with the transition of winter to spring, March is dedicated to pay tribute to the incredible women who have contributed to society and our lives in their own way. At Intel, we recognize the advantage that a diverse workforce offers and the unique challenges that females face in the workforce. That’s why we have our own Women’s Initiative Program to remove barriers, provide support and empower women to achieve a career of personal bests at Intel. As part of International Women’s History Month, our program manager, Zella, connected with some of the many inspirational women at Intel to ask them about their inspirations. Zella joined Intel in 2000 and has many roles within the company including technical roles in Intel’s Technology and Manufacturing Group. She has a doctorate in Education, Leadership and Change from Fielding Graduate University where her research focused on technical development and career advancement for female semiconductor engineers. In our first post, Zella introduces us to Sylvia.

Sylvia is a passionate, creative, Colombian self-proclaimed geek who joined Intel over 9 years ago and currently works as a Marketing Programs Manager for the PC Client Group. Sylvia is known for her creativity and out-of-the box thinking, especially when it comes to looking at fresh, compelling ways of delivering messages, demos and benefits to her audience. She loves to learn new things and loves to share her knowledge with others. She uses these talents to lead creative marketing efforts around some of our coolest PC products and technologies. Sylvia is a graduate of the University of Miami (Hurricanes) and moved to Portland 9 years ago. She loves Barre* workouts and tennis, and recently spent part of her sabbatical attending Roland Garros in Paris. I asked Sylvia about women who inspire her, and this is what she had to share:

“Personally, it’s impossible to narrow it down the inspirational woman in my life to just one individual. Externally, it’s my tía (aunt) Rocío. My aunt is an 81 year old woman who is VERY active, which is why she is in such great physical and mental condition. When she turned 60 she was stuck at home in NJ due to a horrible storm. Instead of getting cabin fever, she decided she would go learn how to Ski. That showed me that it is never too late to learn or try something new. She recently wrote a book, is on the Board of Advisors for a local school and not only keeps her professional practice going but is also an incredibly involved family member. Internally (to Intel), it would be my previous GM and VP, Michelle Johnston. Michelle, while much, much younger than my aunt, is not far off in her accomplishments. Somehow she manages to successfully lead an entire organization of hundreds of employees, is very involved in her kids school – knows about school assignments and participates in numerous activities – AND she planned her sister’s entire wedding. I can barely handle work and a cat but this gives me hope. Both Michelle and my aunt Rocío are very strong working moms and firstborns with natural leader abilities. In our family, my aunt is the head of the clan – everyone comes to her for advice, wisdom, support and encouragement. Since I was a very young girl, my aunt encouraged me to try new things, to follow my passions, to never give up. It didn’t matter what I was interested in at the time, she always had words of praise and reassurance. While working for Michelle I always felt like I had someone pushing me to realize my potential, guiding me to focus on what I do best and recognizing what makes me unique. What’s wonderful about both of these women and my relationship with them is that they’ve made me want to push myself beyond my limits to prove them right and make them proud.”

]]>Putting Out Fires, Intel Style.http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2014/02/27/putting-fires-intel-style/
Thu, 27 Feb 2014 22:44:21 +0000http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/?p=2242Volunteering isn’t just an activity around Intel, it’s a part of our culture and a responsibility that all of our employees share and the company values. When Intel employees give their time, Intel matches those efforts with dollars. Every time Intel … Read more >

]]>Volunteering isn’t just an activity around Intel, it’s a part of our culture and a responsibility that all of our employees share and the company values. When Intel employees give their time, Intel matches those efforts with dollars. Every time Intel volunteers give their skills, energy and passion to a cause, they’re changing the world and making it a better place. The Intel Involved Matching Grant program awards cash grants to eligible organizations based on the number of hours that Intel employees volunteer. The Intel Involved Hero Award recognizes extraordinary employee volunteers who have made a significant and lasting impact working with non-profit organizations or schools to address community needs. Finalists and the winner receive a grant for the non-profit/non-governmental organization of their choice. Here’s another guest blog post by Intel’s Employee Communications Team member, Walden, as he introduces us to Patrick, winner of the 2013 Global Intel Involved Hero Award.

Patrick has worked at Intel for 19 years as a systems programmer. Before that? Different career. He worked in Detroit as a tool and die maker who created parts for the aerospace and other industries.

Thinking back to that first lunch meeting he had with the Gilbert, Arizona fire chief and his IT guy, Patrick recalls telling them, “I think we can do this.” Patrick says they looked at him skeptically.

Big mistake.

Recently, Patrick—an Intel Arizonasoftware engineer and systems programmer with a knack for simply getting stuff done—was picked from among 13 finalists and honored with the Global Intel Involved Award for 2013. As part of the award, the Intel Foundation will donate $10,000 to the local fire department.

What Patrick did for the city of Gilbert—as a volunteer—was remarkable.

Despite serving one of the very fastest-growing cities in America, Gilbert’s Fire Department was badly lagging in technology. Little was online. Paramedics arriving at the scene of an accident or fire would scratch down a patient’s blood pressure and vitals with a pen on the back on their hand, then later radio that information to the hospital as they sped to the emergency room. Everything else was on paper, and important information moved at snail’s pace. Incident reports were available—30 days later.

“We could get that down to 8 hours,” Patrick told the fire chief and his team.

They’d been eyeing off-the-shelf information systems, but there was no way they could afford the big price tag—the nearby city of Phoenix had paid $750,000 for a study and $1.5 million just to get started.

Eight months of coding and development

So Patrick set to work, volunteering with Intel’s Mentoring and Planning Services (MAPS) program that matches Intel employees’ skills with the needs of local schools, non-profits and government agencies.

First things first—Patrick simply “hung out” he says, spending time riding along with the local fire crews as they rushed to car wrecks and fires and other mishaps. He watched how the fire crews worked, what they needed, what would speed the flow of patient and emergency info.

Then he began coding. A lot of it. After about eight months of development work, and some 20 iterations of his program’s user interface, Patrick delivered FireDox.

Inside a Gilbert, Arizona, fire truck with Patrick’s app running on the tablet on the right side of the dash. The department has outfitted each truck with two tablets running FireDox, as well as PCs in all the department’s fire stations.

FireDox is an application that runs on Intel-based tablets and PCs and is today dramatically streamlining all aspects of information flow in the Gilbert Fire Department. The data that emergency crews collect—from 7,200 patients and 13,000 incidents per year—goes into FireDox on-scene, real-time, online. Hospitals know exactly who is headed toward their ER. Training data is readily available to fire crews, as are patient record, medical treatments, and other key bits of data. Patrick designed FireDox so that first responders can draw a quick sketch of a scene—something they need to do, but that other bookkeeping-oriented off-the-shelf systems could not support. Gilbert Fire Chief Collin Dewitt calls the system that Patrick created—now running on about 80 ruggedized tablets and 60 PCs—“probably the best in the country” and superior to anything he could have bought.

For his part, Patrick Grogg says simply that “I feel good I was able to do something for my town.”

Walking the Intel talk

Oh and one other thing. Early in the project, Patrick recalls a meeting with members of the Gilbert Fire Department. He’d opened up his Intel-issued HP laptop, which was fitted with a blue Intel-branded laptop skins that read:

“Go ahead and say it can’t be done. We love that.”

“The chief asked me, ‘do you really believe what you have on your laptop?’”

]]>Score! Employee’s Super Bowl ad wins $1 million prizehttp://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2014/02/05/score-employees-super-bowl-ad-wins-1-million-prize/
Wed, 05 Feb 2014 21:41:41 +0000http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/?p=2219While we spend the majority of our waking life at work, employees aren’t just who they are in the office–they are people with passions and interests outside of the workplace as well. We love hearing about our employees’ lives outside … Read more >

]]>While we spend the majority of our waking life at work, employees aren’t just who they are in the office–they are people with passions and interests outside of the workplace as well. We love hearing about our employees’ lives outside of work and like to celebrate their accomplishments in their personal life, like this one. Here’s another guest blog post by Intel’s Employee Communications Team member, Walden, as he goes behind the scenes of one of Sunday’s Super Bowl commercials.

Raj, an Intel Arizona employee, enjoyed one heck of a Super Bowl Sunday. In an ad contest sponsored by Doritos, Raj and his small creative team beat out more than 5,400 entries from 30 nations—and scored a $1 million grand prize.

Raj’s hilarious 30-second spot, called “Time Machine”—he was producer and co-writer—was viewed by more than 110 million people worldwide watching the big game and won the top prize as the audience favorite in pre-Super Bowl online voting. The runner-up won $50,000.

Calling Raj’s ad low-budget would be an exaggeration. At the high end. The ad’s main prop—this is not a spoiler—was an old cardboard box.

Within a day, “Time Machine” had gone viral. Raj heard that execs at HP played the ad to kick off a high-level meeting. In Rochester, New York, a pastor played “Time Machine” for his congregation of 1,000. Monday afternoon—between TV, radio, and newspaper interviews on the east coast—we caught up with Raj, whose day job is a systems analyst in Intel’s Technology and Manufacturing Group, TMG.

Q. Wow! Congratulations!

Thank you! Thank you! I am kind of in disbelief. I can hardly believe what we did. From what I am reading, we are included in most of the top-5 Super Bowl spots.

Q. This is an amazing story.

Yes, it’s absolutely incredible. I am really having a hard time wrapping my mind around it. I’m just really proud of what we did. People spend millions of dollars to do what we did. And we did it for $300.

Raj spent Monday doing press interviews on the U.S. East Coast, then was planning to visit his parents in the Baltimore, Maryland area to celebrate before returning to his Intel job in Arizona.

Q. This all happened pretty fast. I’m guessing that creating “Time Machine” took just a bit of creativity and teamwork?

Yeah, it starts with the genesis of an idea. The basic premise, the idea, came from our director, Ryan’s, 6-year-old son named Gavin. He’s the little boy in the ad. He’s always asking his dad, “Can you build me something? Can you build me a time machine?” So that kind of got us started. And then we fleshed the story out together. Any time you collaborate, you gotta be willing to listen.

There were times, well, Ryan and I butted heads a lot. But he’d listen to me. And I’d listen to him. And you have to be willing to hear the other side. We were sitting on sofas and it was like, “Well, how about this?” and “How about that?” And sometimes you just have to be willing to acknowledge that the other person has a better idea than you.

Q. Alright, so you and your pals won $1 million. Did you learn anything along the way?

Yeah I did learn something. How do you get people to enroll in your idea? To rally around something. We wanted everyone who watched the ad online before the Super Bowl to be part of the team, not just to buy the product, but to be part of our team, and vote for us and the ad. We made sure we took people along on the ride with us!

Q. You only found out you’d won by watching the Super Bowl? They didn’t tell you in advance?

No. Doritos had us all in a skybox at the stadium with marketing and advertising execs. We all gathered when we knew the Doritos ad slot was coming up, which fortunately for us was the first commercial break. When I saw it, I started jumping and screaming! Our director, Ryan, who is a single dad and a “starving artist,” he was crying. I didn’t cry. I’ll just say I had something in my eye. It was just a really special moment.

Q. So who gets the million bucks?

Well there are about 8 of us. It’s not going to get exactly split. But everyone is getting compensated several factors above and beyond if we’d just paid them outright for their services. No one will be upset!

What a story! Congratulations to Raj and his team on an incredible accomplishment!

]]>Managing with Care: How to Make Your Career Work with Family Challengeshttp://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2014/01/24/managing-care-make-career-work-family-challenges/
http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2014/01/24/managing-care-make-career-work-family-challenges/#commentsFri, 24 Jan 2014 22:27:41 +0000http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/?p=2208Note from the editor: One of my first posts on this blog 4 years ago (!!) was about flexibility and how much I appreciated the flexibility that Intel offered to me. Then I read this post from Jennifer and realized … Read more >

]]>Note from the editor: One of my first posts on this blog 4 years ago (!!) was about flexibility and how much I appreciated the flexibility that Intel offered to me. Then I read this post from Jennifer and realized how flexibility isn’t just a benefit or nice-to-have for some people, but it’s necessary for them to manage their lives and careers. Jennifer, a working single mother of two, including a special needs child, is one of those people. She is an instructional designer within Intel’s Information Technology organization who creates learning materials to help Intel employees use technology to do their jobs and has been with Intel for twenty years. Jennifer shares her story with tips on how to manage work/life needs and find what works best for you.

A recent family portrait of Jennifer’s family. The rose represents her husband, Kenny, who passed away 4 years ago (4 months after being diagnosed with stage IV cancer).

Every working parent knows the intensity of balancing work with family. Add a special needs child, chronically ill family member, elder care or other family challenge into the mix and you can move from “intense” to “insane” faster than you can say “Division of Developmental Disabilities” or “Cancer Treatment Centers of America”!

For most of my time at Intel I’ve been mom to a daughter with autism and severe seizure disorder (epilepsy), and I’ve seen my husband through end of life from cancer, all while trying to keep things normal for my typically developing son. Somehow, I’ve remained successful at my job despite the personal turmoil, reduced work hours, and constant distractions. How have I done it? I owe much of my success to the support from my management and team. In addition to that, let me share how I’ve approached my situation and how I worked to build the needed support.

Define your goals and how you can contribute

The foundation for everything is to know what is important to you and what types of job situations will make you successful. Within a year of Bethany’s autism diagnosis, I had changed my career direction. I moved from a fast-paced, “stretch” job back into a role that was more within my comfort zone. Due to the nature of Bethany’s care needs, I can be called away at any time, perhaps for a few hours, perhaps for days or even weeks, and so my job role needs to be able to accommodate that with minimal impact to the business.

I defined the type of job assignments where I could contribute and excel. The criteria have not changed in more than a dozen years, although my projects have been varied and challenging. I need assignments that:

Allow me to control or negotiate schedule

Are not routinely fast-turnaround or customer-responsive

Are appropriate for my grade level but can be covered by someone else if needed

Partner with your manager

Once I knew how I could best contribute to my organization, I enlisted the help of my manager and I continue to do so on a regular basis. Together we identify projects that will benefit the team but won’t provide exposure to unexpected absences. Without my manager’s understanding and support, I would quickly fail—and so would my project.

Like most everyone at Intel, I get new managers on a regular basis. To help with that, I created a few slides that help us get acquainted. I describe my skill set and unique value-add to the team and then explain the types of projects that are the best fit, with examples of good/not-so-good projects from real experience.

My manager and I also agree on a work schedule that meets both business and personal needs, giving me the flexibility to attend therapy, medical, school and legal appointments as needed, as well as to provide direct care for my daughter when she is particularly unwell or a caregiver cancels a shift. I have an ongoing family leave of absence that gives me job protection for the intermittent absences. I am away from work frequently but I also work in the evenings and I am responsive in off-business hours.

Manage expectations

This is basic business common sense, but given my flexible schedule, I find it helpful to be explicit about what I will deliver and when to meet my commitments. If I can’t make it to an 8 a.m. meeting, I let the meeting chair know when I will join and then I am there at that time, consistently. While my words are important, my actions are critical to give me credibility. I give frequent status updates to ensure deliverables are on track. When I join a new project team, I let the project manager and other key stakeholders know my personal situation, so they know what to expect. We can discuss concerns and work them out proactively. I don’t belabor my special circumstances and I certainly don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me. But I do want my team to be aware so we can work well together.

At times I have had to hold a difficult grounding conversation, because I would be interrupted by phone calls or texts from the school regarding seizures. These are priority messages that cannot wait, but they interrupt meetings and distract the team. It can be awkward for the team because they don’t want to appear insensitive yet we need to stay focused. To level set, I tell them that while serious, the situation is manageable. If I am at the meeting, then things are under control and I can be there; if they are not manageable, I will leave. Nothing further needs to be addressed. This frank conversation seems to reassure everyone and lets us do what Intel hired us to do: our work.

Be transparent but maintain your privacy

Each person’s need for privacy is different. I tend to be an open person and appreciate my coworkers’ interest or curiosity; I welcome the chance to share hard-won knowledge, or to offer support if someone has a similar circumstance. I clearly mark my personal out of office appointments on my calendar and my permissions are set so that anyone can see subject as well as free/busy. If there is an appointment I wish to keep truly private, I use the privacy feature in Outlook to shield the subject. I also liberally use my Lync status note, particularly if something unusual comes up. This is a great tool, for example, if I’m held up at the doctor’s, I can update the status note from my smartphone using Lync Mobile.

Avoid the comparison trap

If I have a career dream, it would be to arrive at work at 8 a.m., take an hour lunch where I could read a book or walk with a friend, and leave at 5 p.m. But I haven’t been able to have a day even remotely like that since 1999 and likely never will be. I’ve made difficult choices in my career and sadly let some opportunities pass me by. I see former peers move into positions or along paths that I may have pursued. It’s hard not to compare or wonder how things could have been different.

When I feel stymied or frustrated I just remind myself how, working my managers and colleagues, I have maximized what I can do. Each day I know I have contributed my best and kept my side of my contract with Intel. In return, Intel has offered me tremendous flexibility that has allowed me to be a successful working parent of a special needs child for more than a decade. Really, what is there that could possibly compare to that?

Thanks for letting me share my story. What’s your story, and what strategies have worked for you?

]]>http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2014/01/24/managing-care-make-career-work-family-challenges/feed/4Intel hires 16-year-old prodigyhttp://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2014/01/13/intel-hires-16-year-old-prodigy/
http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2014/01/13/intel-hires-16-year-old-prodigy/#commentsMon, 13 Jan 2014 22:46:33 +0000http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/?p=2198Note from the editor: Last week, our CEO, Brian Krzanich (BK), made some incredible announcements at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in his keynote. From wearables to a new chip, Edison, to fashion partnerships to a $1.3 million prize competition … Read more >

]]>Note from the editor: Last week, our CEO, Brian Krzanich (BK), made some incredible announcements at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in his keynote. From wearables to a new chip, Edison, to fashion partnerships to a $1.3 million prize competition to ending the use of conflict minerals to recognizing some of the incredible innovators that use Intel technology, excitement and buzz filled the air! Among his announcements, he introduced the world to Joey, who at 16 is our youngest employee. Since we’re focused on the people behind Intel, we thought we’d bring you the story behind Joey and how he ended up here.

You might say that 16-year-old math and engineering whiz kid Joey Hudy’s warm-up act was for U.S. President Barack Obama.

There, at the White House Science Fair last year, Joey demo’d for Mr. Obama the air cannon he’d built. “Congratulations!” exclaimed the President, after Joey fired a marshmallow over the heads of the press corps and smooshed it into a White House wall. (The video is on YouTube.)

Joey is a champion “maker” whom the editors of Brilliant.org recently named “one of the 10 smartest kids in the world.” In addition to building that marshmallow cannon (kid stuff), Joey has been doing more serious tinkering with Arduino boards (a popular platform for our new Quark chips) and selling them online. He also built a solar-powered computer in another science competition.

So last week—after previously dropping a thank-you note to BK—Joey attended New Employee Orientation (NEO) at Intel in Arizona.

He is the youngest person Intel has ever hired through our Corporate Internship Program, which traditionally is meant for talented college-age students. “We hope to forge a lasting relationship with Joey, and all our interns, as we support their professional development,” says Vaadra, U.S. Intern Program Manager in HR.

Unlike the 1,500 or so other interns we’ll hire in the U.S. this year, Joey does not yet have his driver’s license. His mom Julie drove him to NEO.

At the Intel campus in Chandler, Joey will be working in the New Devices Group’s Product Development organization—once school is out this summer. He’ll go back to high school in the autumn.

]]>http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2014/01/13/intel-hires-16-year-old-prodigy/feed/2Diversity in Your Careerhttp://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2014/01/06/diversity-career/
Mon, 06 Jan 2014 14:43:04 +0000http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/?p=2194Note from the editor: Every time I scan our internal blogs, I feel a sense of pride. I’m proud to be affiliated with so many intelligent and inspiring colleagues, like Viji. Viji has been with Intel for over 8 years … Read more >

]]>Note from the editor: Every time I scan our internal blogs, I feel a sense of pride. I’m proud to be affiliated with so many intelligent and inspiring colleagues, like Viji. Viji has been with Intel for over 8 years and is an engineering manager in the IT department with Intel India. She recently shared this blog post through our internal blogging platform, chronicling her career and experience thus far.

Steve Jobs once said “The greatest artists like Dylan, Picasso and Newton risked failure. And if we want to be great, we’ve got to risk it too”

Not sure when he said this or when I heard it; nor do I think I compare to the greats but I have a feeling my career is definitely inspired by the quote. In an era when more and more people are talking about diversity in the corporate world, I am grateful for the diversity of roles in my career – Intel has given me a variety over the past 8+ years and each and every one of them has been highly interesting.

Armed with a B.Tech in Metallurgical Engineering from IIT-M and a M.S. in Engineering Science from a US university, I was inundated with offers to start my career as an IT consultant, thanks to the C++ course that was prominently featured in my Master’s grade sheet. Running high on self-esteem and a deep interest and fascination for the semiconductor industry, I was too proud to let go of my background. The heart managed to withstand the constant pressure of the penniless purse for almost 4 months after graduation until I finally landed my dream job as a Fab Litho process engineer at a chip manufacturing company (not Intel). And thus began my journey in the corporate world. I lived that dream for 7 beautiful years. I felt like an astronaut floating in space in a bunny suit that I wore diligently every day for those years. The sub-micron images that were cast on the wafer made me feel like Picasso. Troubleshooting yield problems was giving me the high that shots of tequila couldn’t—I know that sounds corny but that’s really how much I loved my job. I didn’t know how easily I could work 60 hour weeks without even realizing it. It seemed like I just batted an eyelid and here I was 7 years, a husband and 2 children later.

The best thing about working in a fab is of course, the intellectual satisfaction. It comes with a price though. The job is the most direct impact to the business of a chip manufacturer and hence, you are in the direct line of potential fire always. You have no life because you are on call 24X7X365. How does that work when you have a family needing to be nurtured? I am sure there are superwomen out there but that was my hard limit. It was a difficult compromise to switch jobs and leave manufacturing R&D but I considered myself very fortunate to be able to find a job that was a perfect balance: working in a fab, yet no giving your life to it. This was when Intel had come into my life and I became a technical negotiator in the capital equipment procurement space. I got to use my fab knowledge while learning a new skill. I understood the advantage “perspective” can have when you move to a new role – I got to leverage my knowledge of fab while understanding the intricacies of procurement process. My first attempt to seek diversity in my career helped me hone the ability to connect the dots – and I am eternally grateful for that. Life was good. I had nothing to complain about for a few years.

I had worked in the US for 10-11 years when the critical family decision of moving back to India happened. While this was an exciting idea, job prospects for my background were bleak. But Intel is a place of miracles. Intel found a fit where no one else could. I was moved into a role of strategic sourcing manager in the IT services space. What a company to work for! My fab experience went down the drain but it made me realize something—I could seamlessly transition into anything I had limited knowledge on and do a fairly decent job of it. I had spent a couple of years in the team picking up new skills and almost 6 years in procurement/strategic sourcing by then. But the problem was having to work late nights because the organization was US centric (and rightly so) and to me, the growth opportunities in a lean site was limited.

At a time when I felt that learning in this role was plateauing out, as serendipity would have it, I got hired into the IT organization as the business operations manager. I was picked to manage a team in IT within a year with absolutely no IT background. The real big challenge was to be leading a team that has a vast experience and far more domain and functional knowledge. But I think what works for me is the fact that I have seen such diverse roles that I am able to bring a different perspective to the role. In essence, I am in my third career, probably 7th or 8th role and going strong – I find that by seeking diversity in my roles, I have gained more confidence in taking up newer roles, provide leadership and direction to teams to see the big picture, a better understanding of organization I work for, made some great friends along the way and most of all avoided any boredom of monotony.

My 2 cents worth: Try new things and don’t be afraid to fail. Because to live a creative life, we must lose our fear of failing.

I am indebted to several people who have helped me through my difficult times. They will reside in my grateful heart forever.

]]>Should You Go Back to School for Your IT Career?http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2014/01/02/should-you-go-back-to-school-for-your-it-career/
Thu, 02 Jan 2014 15:46:29 +0000http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/?p=2188Note from editor: We have a guest blog post from Ben Thomas today. Ben reached out to us because he thought you, our readers, would find this post useful. We agree—what do you think? If you’ve been told that a … Read more >

]]>Note from editor: We have a guest blog post from Ben Thomas today. Ben reached out to us because he thought you, our readers, would find this post useful. We agree—what do you think?

If you’ve been told that a graduate degree offers a fast track to a six-figure salary or a seat on the company board, what you’ve heard is a highly oversimplified version of the truth. Advanced degrees in computer science are correlated with higher salaries, it’s true; but not necessarily with lottery-sized wage increases. And while IT professionals with higher degrees can find it easier to attain high rank, many IT positions require only a bachelor’s degree – along with plenty of real-world experience. In short, your best course of action depends, at least in part, on your current career situation. So here are three points to consider if you’re struggling with your grad-school decision.

Study your social network
Among people you know personally in the IT field, who has an advanced degree in a computer-related specialty? Your answer might include one or more of your senior managers, who may also have received graduate education in business administration. If you’re an engineer working for a large corporation, you might also put some high-ranking designers on that list. On the other hand, if you work for a smaller, younger company, your managers and engineers might be fresh out of a bachelor program. Some of your company’s tech support staff might not have any college-level technology training at all. Additional training isn’t always a requirement – but it may be a crucial asset if you’re aiming to move up. “I didn’t finish my B.S. degree until I had already been in the workforce for some time,” says Elaine Miller, web portal administrator for the Association of Information Technology Professionals. “But nowadays, a B.S. degree is considered a ‘union card’ for professional [IT] workers.” Thus, before you apply for a graduate program, it’s important to develop a precise idea of how a higher degree will directly improve your ability to perform your desired job. Not only are admissions officials likely to ask you about this, but your answer will also help you map out the amounts of time and money necessary to reach your specific career goals.

Look where you’re going

Before you commit to the idea of graduate school, consider – career trajectory aside – whether you’re content in your current work environment. You might be dissatisfied with your hours or salary, but another question is even more crucial: What do you think of the idea of working in your current environment, say, ten years in the future? The security provided by a proven corporation might help you feel safe – or smothered. The excitement of new software cycles might stress you out, or it might inspire your work ethic. Whatever your situation, graduate school alone won’t springboard you into a different lifestyle or corporate culture – so if that’s the change you’re aiming to make, you’ll be better off beefing up your resumé and exploring some new career options. “Even if your current job isn’t the one you really want, keep gathering work experience as you advance your education,” says Oliver Sanchez, managing partner of the Information Technology Experts Alliance. “The most qualified people aren’t always the ones with the highest diplomas – they’re often those who are most highly motivated to learn.” If you’d like to stick with your current employer, it’s worth asking if they offer academic sponsorships. More than half of U.S. employers – including IT companies like Intel – offer some form of educational assistance.

Weigh education and experience

On one hand, flexibility is a core benefit you’re likely to receive with an advanced IT degree. A graduate course can broaden your horizons into fields like software engineering, hardware development, network security – as well as more advanced areas of mathematics, and more business-facing aspects of IT. Not only will this knowledge base heighten your overall employability; your ability to understand and integrate interrelated subfields can improve your shot at a management position. At the same time, though, a degree can’t take the place of real-world experience. “The degree can get you the pay you want – but it’s not going to get you the position you want,” Sanchez says. In other words, if career advancement is what you’re after, you’ve got to keep at least one foot in the “real world.” Managers in many areas of IT are expected to smooth client relations, keep projects on schedule and motivate diverse work teams. When a high-level manager like Sanchez looks over your resumé, he says, he’ll be looking mainly for “plug-and-play” skills that have already been tested and proven in similar work environments.

The benefits of graduate degrees in IT aren’t hard to see: These degrees have brought high salaries, powerful positions and advanced expertise to people in many areas of the industry. But like any lifestyle shift, grad school can invite its share of new challenges – from time commitments to difficult coursework – on the path to those rewards. The decision of whether to apply isn’t just a choice between long-term and short-term thinking, though – it depends, most of all, on which variables you consider most important in your definition of success.

Ben Thomas writes about a wide variety of career fields in Information Technology for The Riley Guide. You can follow Ben on Google+.

]]>Inspired by Changehttp://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2013/11/21/change/
Thu, 21 Nov 2013 20:51:48 +0000http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/?p=2164Have you ever been so heads down in a project that you’re passionate about that when you look up, months have passed, seasons have changed and you have no idea where it all went? That’s how I feel. It has … Read more >

]]>Have you ever been so heads down in a project that you’re passionate about that when you look up, months have passed, seasons have changed and you have no idea where it all went? That’s how I feel. It has been a long, long, long, time since I have blogged (or anyone has blogged) and I’m truly sorry about that. With our new CEO coming in 6 months ago, we knew change was coming and over the past two months, it’s caught up with us.

For over forty years, we’ve created technology that has impacted lives all over the world. What’s more inspiring than the technology we’ve created is what people are doing with Intel technology, and the people behind creating the technology. We’ll be exploring and sharing the incredible people who are creating and using Intel technology to do amazing things. In the meantime, here are some inspiring examples that we’ve found so far.

Girl Rising. If you haven’t seen it, you’re missing out on an inspirational film sharing the personal stories of young women (superheroes in my opinion) who have overcome challenges for one reason: to educate themselves. It’s a must-see.

Both of these examples have inspired us and shown us the impact that Intel has in the world. Stay tuned for more. Until then, share your stories about what inspires you, using #lookinside.

]]>TVs, Tetris and Testshttp://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2013/09/11/tvs-tetris-and-tests/
http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2013/09/11/tvs-tetris-and-tests/#commentsWed, 11 Sep 2013 14:25:59 +0000http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/?p=2111Note from the editor: Alex is back, and he has a test for you this time. I won’t leave you in suspense. Good luck! This week I will be giving you a test. Don’t worry, you can’t fail it, you … Read more >

]]>Note from the editor: Alex is back, and he has a test for you this time. I won’t leave you in suspense. Good luck!

This week I will be giving you a test. Don’t worry, you can’t fail it, you don’t need to study, and it’s also open-book. This test is my foolproof way of testing whether you’re made to be an engineer. Take 5 minutes to prepare yourself, do some jumping jacks or something, stretch out your arms and get ready.

What do you do when your TV doesn’t respond to the remote?

Get new batteries

Smack it around a bit and hope it starts working again

Call your sibling/roommate over to come fix it

Write poetry about the woes of technology

Throwing the remote can also solve the problem of it not connecting to your TV

How would you solve the following problem: how many pennies can fit on the Golden Gate Bridge?

Go to the Golden Gate Bridge with a few thousand dollars in pennies and hope it’s enough

Measure the size of a penny and then find the dimensions of the bridge and divide

Estimate the number pennies that fit on a car, estimate how many cars fit on the bridge, then multiply

Ask if that’s the bridge that Hart Crane was talking about

What is your style of playing Tetris?

Mash the keys and hope it all works out

Fit each piece as best as you can

Strategize by saving certain spaces for specific spots and situations

The root of “Tetris” is the Greek word “tetra”, plural “tetrakis”, and… wait, what was the question again?

1+1=

2

A lemon

11

You really should use “one” instead of “1” when writing

Comment below with why you think this might be true!

If 5 Gizmos can make 5 Gadgets in 5 minutes, how long does it take 100 Gizmos to make 100 Gadgets?

Are they working co-dependently or individually?

5 minutes

Doesn’t matter, it will never be fast enough. We must make Gizmos faster.

You don’t get it do you? You’re supposed to use “five” not “5.” This is unacceptable and therefore I won’t answer.

If you answered “D” for every question… You may not be an engineer, but regardless of what you chose out of “A,” “B,” or “C,” all of those answers, in every question, are some sort of solution to a problem. No matter how obscure they were, coming up with them is what it means to be an engineer.

There is no right answer. That isn’t what engineering is about. It’s about questioning the methods of the world, changing them and tweaking them. They can be anything from as small as explaining how 1+1 could be a lemon to designing a bridge the size of the Golden Gate Bridge with recycled pennies. There are opportunities everywhere to just question the world. Take those chances to make a difference.

Never be afraid to speak your mind about an idea. Unless we make mistakes and explain why they might not work, we will never find solutions to new problems that arise every day. Be prepared to fall, but be even more prepared to pick yourself back up.

]]>http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2013/09/11/tvs-tetris-and-tests/feed/1Intel Teams Mobilize to Help Employees on Asiana Jethttp://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2013/09/10/intel-teams-mobilize-to-help-employees-on-asiana-jet/
http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2013/09/10/intel-teams-mobilize-to-help-employees-on-asiana-jet/#commentsTue, 10 Sep 2013 14:44:56 +0000http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/?p=2123Note from the editor: The July 6th Asiana Airlines plane crash hit a little too close to home for us. Geographically, yes, it’s an airport that many Intel employees have flown in and out of for personal and business reasons … Read more >

]]>Note from the editor: The July 6th Asiana Airlines plane crash hit a little too close to home for us. Geographically, yes, it’s an airport that many Intel employees have flown in and out of for personal and business reasons as our world quarters are located nearby in Santa Clara, but it wasn’t just that. There were a few Intel employees and family members on that plane. This is the story about how Intel sprung into action to help those employees and help them in the aftermath.

It was about 8 p.m. Saturday evening, July 6. Corporate Security’s Richard was lounging at his home in Swindon, England, watching a DVD. Halfway around world, his colleague, Steve, was vacationing on Washington State’s remote Long Beach peninsula. He had just parked his car, and was walking toward the beach. Suddenly both began getting urgent email pings: there’d been a major commercial plane crash in San Francisco. And as they would soon learn, there were three Intel employees aboard that flight.

This is the story of how multiple Intel teams and people on three continents, primarily from Intel Corporate Security and Intel HR’s Customer Care team—very quietly, very rapidly, with zero fanfare—immediately swung into action on behalf of Intel employees.

It’s also a case study showing how employees—by keeping Intel fully in the loop on their business travel details and whereabouts—can speed Intel’s efforts to find them and lend a hand.

First word arrives within 90 minutes

Asiana Airlines flight 214—a huge Boeing 777-200 coming in too low and too slow on its final approach to San Francisco International at the end of a 10-hour flight from Seoul—had smacked into a concrete seawall, lost its entire tail section, skidded down the SFO runway, did a half-cartwheel, and began to burn. There were 307 people aboard. Ultimately, there would be three fatalities, but miraculously, everyone else survived.

Within a scant 90 minutes of the Asiana crash, Intel Security learned that three Intel employees and some family members were aboard—their conditions still unknown—and that they would almost certainly be in need of help.

Investigators with the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) at the Asiana flight 214 crash scene at San Francisco International Airport. Three Intel employees, and several of their family members, were aboard the jet. The Boeing 777-200 had departed Seoul 10 hours earlier. NTSB photo.

Employees had kept Intel looped in on travel plans

The first notification that Intel had three employees on the jet came in to Intel Security’s Richard, the guy at home in England. He got a phone call from an outside firm, on contract to Intel. In the event of a disaster, the firm immediately begins scouring passenger manifests, and matching them with its own customers’ employee travel records.

This seemingly minor point—Intel employees had booked their travel through Intel channels—would prove key to getting help to them fast. Two of the three Intel employees were traveling on business, the third for vacation. Luckily, all three booked through the standard Intel travel process. Shortly after the passenger manifest was matched up with Intel employee travel records, Intel was notified.

Intel Security ‘follows the sun’

Much like it does for some advanced chip design work, Intel has adopted what Intel Security Director Steve calls a “follow the sun” model for calamities. While Richard continued to work to find information on the Intel employees’ status, he immediately reached out to his Intel Security teammates in the U.S. and in Asia to brief them.

Among the first attempts to reach our folks on the jet was a straightforward cell phone call that Richard made. He got a recording that the phone was powered off. “That was ominous,” he recalls.

Behind the scenes, senior leaders keep tabs

Within four hours of the crash, employees from the Human Resources’ Global Workforce Mobility, Intel Travel, and other teams were assembling virtually. Jim, who helps manage the process of corporate responses to emergencies, worked to ensure communications were efficient and quick-moving.

Intel senior leaders—including CEO Brian Krzanich—stayed in the loop throughout the weekend and checked in with Steve to be sure we were doing all we could. “They all asked ‘What can we do?’” says Steve.

Intel’s HR Customer Care team kicks in

Seven hours after the crash, the first info came in—“ second-hand, but solid” is how Steve describes it—that the three employees, as well as one of the employee’s two daughters, were okay. The wife of an employee was hospitalized but her injuries were not life-threatening.

In many kinds of major disasters—floods, fires, crashes, storms, other disasters—those who are lucky enough to survive unhurt are often left without life’s essentials: clothing, cash, valuables, passports and other important documents, or simply a phone to reach out to assure others they’re ok.

In such situations the help of Intel HR Customer Care team members are invaluable. They provide case management for complex, cross-functional HR issues, dealing with everything from escalations on HR issues to employee hardships and tragic events. Customer Care employees—about a dozen of them—are positioned worldwide and can step in quickly when their help is needed.

Cheris, an Oregon-based Customer Care team member, had been working to get through to our employees. She reached the first of the employees at 1:45 p.m. on Sunday when the number she had been given was answered.She identified herself, then asked him simply, “Tell me what you need.”

Daily check-ins with crash survivors

They had lost passports, driver’s licenses, and all their luggage in the burning plane. Over the next hours and days, Cheris and her team worked with the Intel employees as they began to assemble their post-crash lives. The team arranged for emergency credit cards so that the employees could buy clothing and begin to recover what they’d lost. They quickly arranged for laptops so that they could take care of myriad personal logistics. One of the employee’s former managers took her out the next day to shop for clothes and other personal supplies.

Over the next week, Cheris would have contact every single day—by voice, text, or email—with each of the Intel employees, just to see if they needed any additional help. Though it turned out to be unnecessary, she researched medical transport options to move the employee’s wife who was hospitalized to a hospital closer to her home in Arizona.

‘Intel is a family’

Looking back on the Asiana crash and its aftermath, members of both organizations—HR and Corporate Security—say that dealing with extraordinary circumstances is simply what they do for a living.

Steve’s Security team includes Intel employees with many years of real-world security experience in premier law enforcement, intelligence, and military organizations all over the world. In the past, they’ve successfully evacuated employees—details remain confidential—from danger zones or political turmoil around the globe. “When we’re successful, no one knows anything,” says Richard.

In an email note that he sent to Intel friends and well-wishers several days after the crash, one of the employees on the flight summed up his thoughts.

“After the incident my family has gone through, I want to say that I can truly see how much Intel is a family. I was lucky to have my family there quickly, but if they hadn’t been able to be there, I believe Intel would have helped. They offered credit cards, hotel, and basics to get me back on my feet fast. They continue to help me figure out how to move forward.”

When we asked Cheris, all she had to say was, “it’s very gratifying to be able to help people in their time of need.”

]]>http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2013/09/10/intel-teams-mobilize-to-help-employees-on-asiana-jet/feed/1Day in the Life: US Marine Corps Veteran & Intel Directorhttp://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2013/09/05/day-in-the-life-us-marine-corps-veteran-intel-director/
http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2013/09/05/day-in-the-life-us-marine-corps-veteran-intel-director/#commentsThu, 05 Sep 2013 14:00:26 +0000http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/?p=2098Note from the editor: Rob is back again to share another reason why he has one of the best jobs at Intel—it’s because of the people he meets. As the Program Manager for Intel’s Veteran Recruiting & Staffing efforts, he … Read more >

]]>Note from the editor: Rob is back again to share another reason why he has one of the best jobs at Intel—it’s because of the people he meets. As the Program Manager for Intel’s Veteran Recruiting & Staffing efforts, he has the opportunity to interact and meet with quite a few veterans across the company. What better way to share some of the stories and backgrounds of these amazing veterans than to blog about it here? With that, here’s Rob with his profile of Rudy, a Naval Academy Graduate, US Marine Corps Veteran and Director of Enterprise Quality and Reliability at Intel’s Corp Quality Network Group.

Rudy, we’re excited to profile you on the blog as an Intel leader as well as a veteran. Would you mind going over which branch of service you served in and what you did in the military?

I was commissioned in the Marines from the Naval Academy. After Quantico, or what Marines call The Basic School, I was assigned first to H&HS 28 as the Ground Supply Officer for the Tactical Air Command Center. The TACC was a unique unit designed to manage the Air War for the Second MAG. I learned a lot about supply chain as we were a three level facility providing depot level repairs, intermediate supplies and front line exchange. Ironically, it was based on the Walmart System. I deployed for Northern Wedding Bold Guard in Norway and several smaller exercises during my three years in Cherry Point.

“I’m one of the skinny guys up front :-)” – Rudy

“Again, I’m one of the skinny guys up front :-)” – Rudy

From Cherry Point I was assigned to the Third Marine Division with 1st Armored Assault Battalion. As a Battalion we were unique, due to our position in the Far East with the entire Division’s Armor assets were combined into one Battalion. We had Tanks, AAVs, LAVs and TOWs in a 1500 Marine battalion that rotated line companies every 90 days from Camp Pendleton. It was a high tempo operation. I deployed to Team Spirit in Korea along with other smaller exercises while operating out of Okinawa with a battalion detachment in Camp Fuji mainland Japan.

What is your role here at Intel?

I joined Intel in 1991 to help with Supply Line accountability and TPT. Our initial focus back then was inventory management, training and reconciliation for the North American Facilities. That quickly grew to a global supply chain role. I went back to school to complete my Masters in Decision and Information Systems while leading the program to deploy our World Wide logistics information systems. Most recently I have been running our Operational Excellence programs which are now under my role as Director of Enterprise Quality and Reliability.

How did you find out about opportunities at Intel? Tell us about your interview experience.

I read a book, The 100 Best Companies To Work For (1995). I knew I was going to be living in Arizona and Intel was the only company on the list that was there, so my goal became to find a position with Intel. Back then there were no social networking sites and frankly not many networking opportunities of any kind so I really just picked up the paper and looked for opportunities. Fortunately for me there was an opening as a Shift Supervisor at the North American Distribution Center in Tempe (now located at Intel’s Chandler Campus) that I was able to interview for and that was the start of my Intel Career.

My Interviews were …. interesting. In 1991 things were a little different than they are today and I had to work pretty hard to convince them that my skills from the Marines would translate positively to the corporate setting. The hardest question was toward the end of the interview when he asked me, somewhat emphatically, “Don’t you have any civilian experience?” Fortunately, I had read up on how to interview and I left a pregnant pause then simply said, “No. I left when I was 18 and I am 29 now, but I think you will find everything I learned with the Marines will translate positively to this environment.” He looked at me for some time and said, “OK. I’ll let you go talk to them.”

From there I went down to the facility and got through the second round of interviews. The hardest question there, which I knew as a trap if I answered it wrong, was, “Don’t you think you’re overqualified for this job?” I told them I wanted to learn and be measured—this is still true today. Funny thing now is people always seem surprised when they figure out I was in the Marine Corps.

A lot of companies have really focused on hiring veterans – what was about it Intel that made you say yes?

Intel is discipline and results oriented with a high octane, high performer attitude—I was attracted to the challenge. I had talked to some of my friends before getting out and I knew it would be important for me to find a culture that I could thrive in and Intel, from everything I had read, was a good fit. Intel has a great history of taking care of its people, solid values, and a hard-working, goal-oriented structure. It all looked right for me and I also wanted to work in a company that was making a difference in the world. Intel had it all! I think Intel has made progress and we are making great strides in reaching out to veterans (in the time that I’ve been here) and I am very happy to see that.

Now that you’re here at Intel, what are the two biggest things you wish you knew when you transitioned out of the military uniform?

I needed to relax a little in the beginning, bring the intensity factor down a few notches. Some of my early reviews still make me laugh! I had all the tools but was a little gung-ho and needed some calibration. I could have leveraged mentorships more. As a Marine, and one that was in a specialty MOS, I was used to being in charge of my own shop and reporting directly to the Commanding Officer. I learned to be independent and run my own organization but I should have started working with senior leaders earlier to really understand our business fully.

The other thing that I struggled with was jumping the Chain of Command. You are so used to operating with Standard Operating Procedures in the military and the training for job roles was so solid, there was not as much need to interact. Your mission objectives were spelled out and you had tremendous latitude to act. In a corporate setting there is a lot more negotiation, consensus and interaction at multiple levels. That took some getting used to. I was fine telling it like it was but not used to a VP walking into my office. I equated that to a Commanding General discussion– and that took some getting used to. I see the value of it now but in the early days it was odd to me, but it was just a cultural adjustment I needed to make.

That concluded my interivew with Rudy—it was great getting some time with an Intel leader, which I was able to do due to my role as well as our shared military background. One of the things that sticks out to me was the preparation that Rudy took to find a career in corporate America. He studied and prepared for his interviews as well as tailored his resume to the discipline that he was interested in. In addition, he may not have found his dream job when he first started at Intel, but he worked his way around the company to get there. As a matter of fact, most veterans at Intel don’t start in our dream positions, but we worked hard, generated positive results and proved ourselves to work our way to the positions that we have today. I think this mind set is key when transitioning from the military to the private sector.

I’d like to sincerely thank Rudy for his time and effort to answer my questions. His journey to his present position as the Director of Enterprise Quality and Reliability is captivating and motivating. You may connect with Rudy on LinkedIn and stay tuned for additional interviews from veterans now building great careers at Intel. To connect with other veterans who are transitioning to civilian life as well as other veterans at Intel, join our LinkedIn Group, Intel Military Veteran and Service Member Community, and check out our veterans’ webpage.

]]>http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2013/09/05/day-in-the-life-us-marine-corps-veteran-intel-director/feed/4Playing (and Paper Airplanes) Pays Offhttp://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2013/08/08/playing-and-paper-airplanes-pays-off/
Thu, 08 Aug 2013 22:07:36 +0000http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/?p=2073Note from the editor: One of our core values is being a Great Place to Work (or GPTW, since we love our acronyms.) GPTW encompasses a lot of different things including our actual physical environment at work, being an open … Read more >

]]>Note from the editor: One of our core values is being a Great Place to Work (or GPTW, since we love our acronyms.) GPTW encompasses a lot of different things including our actual physical environment at work, being an open and direct workplace, and having fun, amongst other things. In support of this core value, we have GPTW teams across the world at Intel sites and this team’s job is to make sure that employees have fun! As part of the program, this team will host events, give away tickets to local happenings, give out free food, organize volunteer opportunities and so on and so forth. Recently, the GPTW team in Oregon gave away tickets to watch the Portland Winterhawks play. One of the lucky employees who attended, Ankesh, a Software Engineer for D1C Automation, shared his experience through our internal social platform—and I thought you might enjoy his story as well.

Usually you can win tickets to some of the events held by GPTW and that is a prize in itself since it’s not easy to win tickets these days . However, every once in a while, something phenomenal happens that no one expects. Last Saturday was that day for me. I won tickets to the Portland Winterhawks game and ended up getting seats about 5 rows back from the glass. It was also Paper Airplane Toss night. If you aren’t familiar with this, you are handed roughly an 11×17 sheet of paper for a contest where you make a paper airline and land it on a logo banner on the ice. All those years in elementary school of paper airline making was finally going to come to fruition.

I chose to go with this design because it was more weighted towards the front which would allow it to have a slow descent.

I also told the airplane that it was going to win before I threw it. I think that may have had more to do with it than the design. :-) Anyway, I threw it and to my shock it actually worked like intended and landed on the logo banner, resulting in this:

Weekend getaway? Yes, please!

Which lead up to this (email to my boss):

So hey boss, I’m gonna need to take some time off in the summer now that I wasn’t expecting :-)

To everyone else, don’t slack and not sign up for GPTW events, because you may miss an opportunity like this. (For the record, this was the icing on the cake–having fun events that I can go to and take my friends and family to, paid for by my employer, that’s a prize in itself!)

]]>From Stick Figures to the Mainframehttp://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2013/08/05/from-stick-figures-to-the-mainframe/
Mon, 05 Aug 2013 14:13:03 +0000http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/?p=2044Note from the editor: Alex is back and at it again. From his first introduction to his desk at Intel, to the ThinkTank he started with other interns, to the ideas that he thinks up of on the MAX*, he’s had … Read more >

]]>Note from the editor: Alex is back and at it again. From his first introduction to his desk at Intel, to the ThinkTank he started with other interns, to the ideas that he thinks up of on the MAX*, he’s had a great summer so far and is back to impart some of his thoughts with you. Today he touches upon the path he took to get where he is, from a coding newbie to a coding jedi, he’ll make a computer language seem less intimidating. Who knows, maybe you’ll be inspired to learn one yourself!

I really hope at least one of you raised your hand

Raise your hand if you’ve ever used Facebook*. Now raise your hand if you’ve ever played Angry Birds*. Next raise your hand if you’ve ever listened to music on Pandora*. Finally, raise your hand if you’re awkwardly raising your hand while reading this article and the other people around you are wondering why you’re doing that.

Those ideas are big ideas that have made an impact on modern society and there are thousands of people who have the chance to be a part of them, even you; you just don’t know it. The one thing I want to do with this blog is to break down any barriers you have about going into a computing field just because coding is too “hard” or too “confusing.”

Sanskreek

I promise that if I gave you a book written in a combination of Sanskrit and Ancient Greek and told you to read it, you’d think I was crazy (banking on the fact that none of my readers are fluent in my made up language of Sanskreek…). Many people experience a similar feeling with code. “It looks so confusing!” and “I don’t get what this code is doing?!” are phrases I hear all too often because people expect a learning curve of immediately. Nothing worth having or doing can be had or done on your first try.

I took my first class in computing when I was 14 at my high school. (I didn’t know or even think that I’d be working at Intel at the age of 19, a mere five years later.) The class was taught using the programming language Java. On my first day I raised my hand in front of the entire class and asked, “Excuse me, but where do we actually type the code?” Everyone looked at me like I was crazy, the teacher had to walk over to my desk in the back of the class, right click on the software and click “Edit Code.” I turned red and was too afraid to ask another question for days. It was humble beginnings for me, too. I didn’t just know Java right from the start, nor did I expect to write a newer better version of Google in my first few months. I set small goals for myself and made sure they were attainable before my hopes were dashed.

My first line of code, and I’m sure I’m about to bring up a lot of fun memories for all the programmers out there, was:

System.out.println(“Hello, World!”);

Can any of you guess what that line of code does? All it does is show the text “Hello, World!” on the screen. A few minutes later I typed this in:

Int x = 1;

while (x < 11) {

System.out.println( x + “ “ );

x = x + 1;

}

This code is a little bit trickier, but it starts with “x” being equal to 1, and while it’s less than 11, prints it out and then adds 1 to it, so I end up getting the computer to count from 1 to 10!

Oh the memories! We had some great times together.

My first programs weren’t thousands of lines long, nor were they written with crazy symbols and wild things going on the screen. I wasn’t staring at my screen, sweat beading down my neck, typing furiously for hours in a dark room while I “hacked the mainframe” as so many movies uniquely state. Instead, I spent minutes to hours carefully planning my code on paper, running into errors where I forgot a semi-colon or a bracket. I pushed my way through every line. Every program was difficult for me to write, but as time went on and I learned more and became more fluent in the way of thinking and the languages, the programs I wrote in the first few weeks and even years became second nature.

Even I had to practice my stick figure drawing to make it the disfunctional figure it is today.

Never believe for a second that anyone just understood from moment one. Never believe that people could sit down and be the best on their first try. Never believe that you can’t be the best just because it was rough and slow beginnings. I wouldn’t be writing this blog if I had believed any of those things. Have confidence in yourself that once you push past that first bump, a world of opportunities and future will be right in front of you.

A rocket scientist doesn’t just look at calculus and understand. An Olympic athlete doesn’t win a gold medal without training for years. And a painter doesn’t create a masterpiece on their first attempt. No, they start with stick figures and work their way up.

]]>Why Intel Values Military Veteranshttp://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2013/07/31/why-intel-values-military-veterans/
http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2013/07/31/why-intel-values-military-veterans/#commentsWed, 31 Jul 2013 14:09:12 +0000http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/?p=2065Note from the editor: Intel has been a strong advocate of investing in education, our local communities and our people. In the US, that ties into our pledge to invest in America and is seen through our commitment to support … Read more >

Note from the editor: Intel has been a strong advocate of investing in education, our local communities and our people. In the US, that ties into our pledge to invest in America and is seen through our commitment to support veterans who are transitioning to civilian life. As part of that commitment, we’ve created a recruiting team that is solely dedicated to supporting veterans, current and future employees. Meet Rob: he’s worked at Intel for almost ten years, first starting in the Finance organization and he recently moved over to our recruiting organization as the Veteran Recruiting Program Manager. Prior to Intel, Rob served on active duty for four years with the US Army’s 1st Cavalry Division as an Armor officer. He still serves on a part time basis in the Army reserves as a Logistics officer where he was deployed to Afghanistan with the 82nd Airborne Division from 2011 – 2012. Rob’s here to tell you more about our Veteran hiring initiatives and his experience as a veteran and active duty at Intel.

I have one of the best jobs at Intel. Not only do I get to help people find their dream career, but I also have to privilege of focusing on the recruitment US military veterans. At Intel, we have made it a priority to increase our commitment to hiring the best and brightest military talent.

You may ask why Intel is so interested in hiring military veterans. Well, I can give you a hint by telling you that it has very little to do with the phrase, “It is the right thing to do.” It has more to do with the values, education and experiences that come with serving in the military. As a matter of fact, the military shares some of the same values that we hold dear at Intel such as: Discipline, Risk Taking, Results Orientation, and Quality.

In addition these shared values, veterans tend to be natural leaders. While serving in the military, they were commonly placed in leadership positions above their pay grade and level of experience. This forces a young soldier, sailor, marine or airman to develop and refine their leadership and management skills at the early stages of their careers. Veterans are also very comfortable working on teams and tend to exhibit advanced team building skills. The primary reason for this is that most missions in the military are accomplished as part of a team. At Intel, most of our projects are also team based and require a very high level to team work to accomplish the mission. Because of this veterans tend to seamlessly integrate into our teams and exhibit a high degree of collaboration and coordination.

Also important is the fact that veterans are extremely comfortable working in diverse population environments. Intel is proud of the fact that we have one of the more diverse employee populations among a group similar companies within the technology industry. Since the military is one of the most diverse organizations in the US, veterans are not only comfortable in a diverse workforce but tend to thrive in these environments. Veterans can also work under pressure and meet deadlines. Having personally served in two different high pressure and high stress overseas deployments, I can’t think of any situation in which most veterans would not meet a pressure packed deadline.

As the US military veterans’ talent acquisition manager at Intel, I definitely have a passion for Intel’s dedicated and focused efforts to attract the best and brightest military veterans. I am proud of the strides that Intel has made in employing and supporting our nation’s veterans. Please join our LinkedIn group, Intel Military Veterans and Service Members Community, for more information and updates on our veterans’ initiatives. If you have any questions or would like to follow up with me, I’m very active in the group and look forward to chatting with you there!

]]>http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2013/07/31/why-intel-values-military-veterans/feed/6MAX(imum) Inspirationhttp://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2013/07/30/2027/
Tue, 30 Jul 2013 14:41:33 +0000http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/?p=2027Note from the editor: Alex, our summer intern, is back again with another post for you–but this one is about finding inspiration around you in even the most mundane situations. Take a read for yourself. If you haven’t read Alex’s … Read more >

I think I’ve known the proverb, “A picture is worth a thousand words,” since I was no more than 5 or 6 years old. It’s a beautiful statement, really, unless you consider yourself somewhat of a minimalist writer, and unfortunately, I only get around 500 words for one of these blogs. So is this blog worth only half a picture…? I hope not.

How many pictures is an idea worth? That is the question.

A picture is worth a 1000 words. Well, this one has 300 but you get the point.

I ride the MAX to work almost every day. For those of you not familiar with the Portland area, the MAX is a light rail that travels around Portland and the surrounding suburbs with 4 different lines. From my abode in downtown Portland, I switch lines once before I end up at a stop near Intel where a company shuttle is waiting to take employees from the stop to their campus.

My attempt at sharing some of the street performers I see on the MAX.

Each and every day, without fail, I have a new experience on the MAX. There are some experiences which include seeing teenagers getting off the train and falling off of their longboards (I can always imagine their mother yelling, “Wear your helmet!”) or a street performer craftily practicing the art of balloon animals. Whatever I do see, it can be a pretty lively way to start my mornings.

So why am I telling you this? Chances are you’ve made a commute before; to school, to work, to just get around, we’ve all done it. However, if you haven’t realized this from my previous blogs, I don’t like to justdo anything. I need to make my moments extraordinary, else, why would they be worth it?

So I play a game. How many (somewhat sane) ideas will my fellow passengers inspire in me during my 45 minute commute? This morning’s count: 9. I don’t usually count them specifically, but rather just enjoy the task of generating these random fantasies throughout my travels. So here is a quick summary of my ideas for this morning and descriptions of the idea stimulating event:

Automated seating queue so that passengers getting off sooner are closer to the door (man trips on bike trying to get past other passenger)

Personal solar garbage compactors (woman places garbage in her purse to throw out later

Solar panel glasses with LED lamp (combination of #2 and man squinting at book in tunnel

Luck? Psht…I don’t need luck. I’ve got these shoes!

A four leaf clover shoelace knot for a day of good luck (woman in sneakers and bright green pants)

An app that records what someone is saying while you text so if you’re not paying attention they don’t have to repeat themselves (teenage girlfriend texts while her boyfriend is talking)

An app that turns off other people’s texting while you’re talking so that you don’t have to repeat yourself (see number 5)

Or ears for that matter…

Harry Potter series written from Voldemort’s perspective (man with very flat nose)

Revamped water system using salt water in toilets to reduce fresh water waste (half-filled Aquafina bottle left on the ground)

Computer program that generates ideas for me (my reflection in the window as I had my thinking face on, deciding what to write this blog about)

I’m a firm believer that an idea has no worth in pictures. Each one is priceless. Every idea you have can generate millions, billions of pictures, smiles, words, and great days. Why limit yourself to just one thousand pictures or one thousand words? Let your brain loose and see what you come up with. Take ideas to the MAX. What are some ideas you’ve thought up of?

]]>From Music to Failure Analysis: A Costa Rican’s Career Talehttp://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2013/07/29/from-music-to-failure-analysis-a-costa-ricans-career-tale/
http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2013/07/29/from-music-to-failure-analysis-a-costa-ricans-career-tale/#commentsMon, 29 Jul 2013 18:09:16 +0000http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/?p=2058Note from the editor: We hear time and time again how finding a career that ignites your passion will be less “work” and more enjoyment, which ultimately leads to a happier, healthier and more successful career and life. But how … Read more >

]]>Note from the editor: We hear time and time again how finding a career that ignites your passion will be less “work” and more enjoyment, which ultimately leads to a happier, healthier and more successful career and life. But how often does that actually happen? Probably more often than you think. Meet Marco, an Intel employee for 13 years, as he shares his story of how he went from music to failure analysis and all the growth he’s experienced along the way.

13 years seems like a long time, but when I pause to look back at my Intel career, it seems like it went by in the blink of an eye.

I’m originally from Costa Rica and was raised in a family with limited resources but endless love. My father was a musician and my mother is a hairdresser and they worked really hard to give me the opportunity to go to school. I didn’t think I could afford a university degree so I went for a technician diploma from high school, but with some focus and hard work, I managed to get an academic scholarship to cover my first year of college. I started working as a musician, which allowed me to finish my BS in Electronics, and although I didn’t get much sleep during those years, the experience was worth it as it taught me to be disciplined, to stay focused and to make good use of my time. I’m proud to share that I managed to graduate with Honors and at the same time, I was playing with one of the most popular bands in the country! After graduation, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, so I kept doing what I love and kept playing music, waiting for something to come.

A few months after graduation, I was contacted by Staffing team at Intel as part of a program Intel had with local universities. I went to the interview very curious about the types of jobs Intel had to offer, and to test my English skills. I have to confess that my expectations were different from what I found; I ended up interviewing for a Microprocessor Failure Analysis position, a job I didn’t even know existed! But then it happened: I fell in love with the job—it was like a dream come true! In this role I would deeply understand how Intel’s microprocessors are designed, built and tested. Not only that, I would help make them even better and I would have the chance to interact with the architects and designers that created them around the world—how cool is that?!

Over the course of my career, I’ve had the opportunity to relocate twice to Israel and twice to the US with my family. These unique opportunities made me grow a lot as a professional and as a person. I’ve also had a chance to visit several Intel sites around the world, I’ve met and worked with amazing people, and I’ve made friends from all around the globe. Another experience I learned a lot from was when I became a manager for a little over a year. This allowed me to learn more about myself and helped me learn how to better interact with my coworkers. Currently I’m living in Oregon, but this time I’m here to train new employees, which is a different skill that I’m developing and it gives me a chance to improve my mentoring skills.

My personal life has evolved just as much (and as greatly, if not more) as my career has, and it is in part thanks to the support I’ve gotten from Intel at every stage. From the moment I got married to when my son was born to the times we were living abroad and especially last year when my father passed away, I’ve felt always supported by the company, by management, by the relocation staff and by my coworkers, and that makes a world of a difference. I’ve had the opportunity to travel more than I could ever imagine—sometimes business, sometimes on my own. And remember my first love, music? I’ve had the chance to continue developing my talent as conga player and work with great bands and great musicians in my country. We’ve even recorded a few things for some of the bands. Why am I sharing this with you? I want to show you that even with a successful and challenging career, Intel has allowed me to be equally as successful (and happy!) in my personal life. What more could you ask for?

Looking back after all these years, after all of these experiences, I can see how this company has earned my loyalty, by giving me a great and challenging job that I still love (as much as I did that first day 13 years ago), by being flexible and supportive of me, allowing me to balance my work, my family and my music, by allowing me to grow as a professional, by investing in my development and above all, by believing in me.

Confucius said once: “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life”. Well, that’s my life.

]]>http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2013/07/29/from-music-to-failure-analysis-a-costa-ricans-career-tale/feed/1The Earth Doesn’t Stand Still, Why Should I?http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2013/07/24/the-earth-doesnt-stand-still-why-should-i/
Wed, 24 Jul 2013 18:39:12 +0000http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/?p=2018Note from the editor: We recently introduced you to Alex, one of our summer interns. Alex is back again (and there’s more you’ll hear from him!) with another post about collaborating with other interns, keeping himself active and the surprising … Read more >

]]>Note from the editor: We recently introduced you to Alex, one of our summer interns. Alex is back again (and there’s more you’ll hear from him!) with another post about collaborating with other interns, keeping himself active and the surprising outcome of a simple post.

I hate sitting around idly. I need to be doing something with my hands, with my eyes, with my mind. If I’m not moving forward, I might as well be moving backward.

Don’t let the world drag you by your legs. Or any other part of you for that matter.

So when I had settled in to my desk and was two weeks into my internship, I was definitely doing something, in fact, I was doing quite a lot, but that was the problem. I had settled in. Where could I go to change my schedule around? What could I do to keep my internship from hitting a standstill, a stalemate between myself and my work, neither giving up, but neither gaining the edge?

I could go to the gym… There are great workout spaces here, keep myself moving, get in better shape… Eh. I could always go to the gym at home. I could always take short little breaks and work on projects of my own every few hours, just for a few minutes to clear my mind… Eh. I have projects I work on during the weekends. What could I do beyond my desk, the desk that had been so incredible in leading me to a world of building, creating, and innovative opportunity?

Eureka!

And it hit me. I can move beyond my desk to the people for a workspace to be creative and inventive. I was going to start a Think Tank.

I went on the Intern page we have on PlanetBlue (Intel’s internal communication platform) and sent this out to every intern who’d signed up to receive messages:

I want to start an Intern Think Tank, a meeting place and time for interns to come together in the workplace and come up with ideas, tweak them, and potentially put them into action. We have a lot of talent in our ranks, from programmers to business men and women to innovators and I think that we could do some absolutely mind blowing stuff if we put our heads together.

This was the idea. This was where I was going to move forward. I was going to pioneer the future of Intel by leading a group of young adults, still in the midst of their education, into the incredibly vast world of cutting-edge ideas. I wasn’t asking anyone to build them or generate cost models or business plans. All I was asking was for the interns to construct ideas and collaboratively tackle them from every angle so that we were designing future masterpieces.

Some may see this as 98% failure, but I see this as 2% success. Give optimism a try!

And it worked.

We had 9 people show up to our first meeting, a tiny 2% of the interns on the group at that time, but we had 9 minds to generate ideas. And you can bet they told their friends after. At our next meeting we had even more and it continues to grow every day!

We spoke about apps to find parking spaces in real time in cities and parking structures, and methods to reduce eye-strain when using a computer or mobile screen for long periods of time. We spoke of social networking technology and advancing the connective experience online and the future of technology that you could wear. We created a vision of our future and there was one absolutely crazy thing that still boggles my mind. Everything we talked about, everything that came up, we could do. We had the talent and the knowledge to do all of it. We, a group of 9 college grads and undergrads, had the means to build all of these things because it’s what we’ve studied, it’s what we know, and we’re lucky enough to be the inventive few who came up with these new ideas.

I’m a forward thinker in a forward moving world and I refuse to sit idly by while the world surpasses me.

Sometimes the finish line is just the beginning, but I’m always ready for the next race.

]]>Desk, Meet Doorwayhttp://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2013/07/03/desk-meet-doorway/
http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2013/07/03/desk-meet-doorway/#commentsWed, 03 Jul 2013 23:05:12 +0000http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/?p=1993Note from the editor: Summer means different things to different people. Some people say summer doesn’t actually start until Memorial Day or until schools are out or even until the Fourth of July holiday–but at Intel, we know summer has … Read more >

Note from the editor: Summer means different things to different people. Some people say summer doesn’t actually start until Memorial Day or until schools are out or even until the Fourth of July holiday–but at Intel, we know summer has started when the interns begin to arrive. And oh BOY do they arrive! They come from all over the place, from all different types of backgrounds, for different lengths of time, but one thing is for certain: they’re here to work hard, play hard and leave with an unforgettable experience. This summer, we’re going to do things a little differently and follow an intern by the name of Alex, an upcoming sophomore at Johns Hopkins University over the course of his internship in the Intel Architecture Group in Oregon. Alex is pursuing a triple major in Computer Science, Applied Mathematics and Statistics and Mathematics. In addition to his academics, he’s the President of the Class of ’16 at Hopkins and a brother of Alpha Epsilon Pi. In his own words, he’d say that he loves being a part of the technology world, but outside of programming, he enjoys playing music and juggling! Meet Alex as he takes us along on his Intel internship.

“Mommy! Daddy! I want to work behind a desk while my friends are out exploring the world this summer!”

…Said no one ever.

I agree with you. It sounds crazy when it’s phrased that way, and you can imagine why my parents were confused when I brought it up to them, but in reality, my experience this summer is nowhere near that.

I know this might surprise you, but being a programmer has nothing to do with pocket protectors or immensely thick glasses. I know… Shocking. Nor does it mean sitting hunched over a desk slowly developing carpal tunnel as you work your way into your 30’s already bald and still living off of chips (not the kind Intel makes, but the kind you eat) and pop (or soda, if that’s what you call it).

For all you know, that binary is actually saying it is me… The world may never know.

Being a programmer has everything to do with innovation and freedom. With a laptop in one hand and a charger in the other (one of the world’s only limitations… battery sizes, but don’t worry, engineers are working on it), programmers have been known to change the world. All you need is an idea and a will and the tools are all laid out in front of you.

You didn’t think I meant literally, did you?

You never hear of a rising sophomore in college becoming the chief editor of a magazine or the manager of the New York Yankees*. You never hear of a 22 year old artist selling their first work for $10.4 million. But there are movies made and newspapers commandeered to portray the immense success stories and triumphs of young minds who have committed to a dream of a brighter future and an improved world.

I’m 18 years old. I’ve been flown across the country to spend time at Intel innovating and exploring new solutions to previously unseen options. I spend lunch with brilliant minds from around the world and meet with the men and women who devised the pieces of your computer that allow you to access Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Google on a second to second basis.

I get to design the future.

So, back to my original statement. While I could have worked at a summer camp or as a life guard at the local pool, I chose instead to get an apartment on the west coast, go out with friends on weekends and go sky diving after work. I chose to take part in a technology revolution that everyone will benefit from. I chose to be a mind behind a forward moving world.

This isn’t a desk. It’s a doorway and behind it is whatever I decide it will be.

It’s a bit of a squeeze, but if it were the easiest path, it wouldn’t be worth taking.

You’ll hear more from me in the near future regarding my personal experiences here and all of the opportunities that I will have the fortune to take hold of!

]]>http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2013/07/03/desk-meet-doorway/feed/2It’s a Brand New Jobs at Intel Site—Made for You!http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2013/06/28/its-a-brand-new-jobs-at-intel-site-made-for-you/
http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2013/06/28/its-a-brand-new-jobs-at-intel-site-made-for-you/#commentsFri, 28 Jun 2013 17:28:56 +0000http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/?p=1985If you’ve visited our Jobs at Intel website recently, and by recently I mean between yesterday and today, you may have noticed it’s different. Not a, “Oh look, they added a new photo!” different, but an “Am I at the … Read more >

]]>If you’ve visited our Jobs at Intel website recently, and by recently I mean between yesterday and today, you may have noticed it’s different. Not a, “Oh look, they added a new photo!” different, but an “Am I at the right place? This looks really different” kind of different.

Our corporate recruitment website – Jobs at Intel – underwent a major transformation! (Don’t worry, it’s the same great content plus more, just organized in a better way and prettier!) It’s been a year in the making but we’re proud to finally be able to show you what’s been going on behind the scenes. There are lots of great things about the upgrade but what we like most is that it’s centered around YOU – for the best user experience to help you navigate our recruitment website best! The look and feel is fresh and navigation has evolved to match the trends and flow of how users find and use content. Some of the updated features include smart search and smart filters which provide content delivery that is tailored to meet your specific needs.

Whether you’re a student looking for an internship or a first career or an experienced professional looking for a different challenge, the new site will enable you to explore opportunities, access and apply for jobs or browse Life at Intel and discover firsthand the benefits of being an Intel employee.

Our goal is to revolutionize the way candidates like you engage with the Intel brand, our web products and services and to create a user experience that puts you at the center and really highlights Intel as a Great Place to Work.

So, what are you waiting for? Go on and give the Jobs at Intel site a whirl—and let us know what you think! Your comments and feedback (good and bad, but please no ugly) help us get better.

]]>http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2013/06/28/its-a-brand-new-jobs-at-intel-site-made-for-you/feed/14A Mother’s Day letter to a new Intel momhttp://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2013/05/12/a-mother%e2%80%99s-day-letter-to-a-new-intel-mom/
Mon, 13 May 2013 01:04:44 +0000http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/?p=1963Note from the editor: Here’s yet another beautiful blog post shared on our intranet from one Intel employee to another. Regardless of if you have kids or not, I think we can all agree that being a parent is the … Read more >

]]>Note from the editor: Here’s yet another beautiful blog post shared on our intranet from one Intel employee to another. Regardless of if you have kids or not, I think we can all agree that being a parent is the toughest, yet most rewarding, job in the world. Throw in being a first-time parent and having an already challenging career, and you’ll get a feel for what life is like for many working parents. Jan, manager of the Internal Employee Communications team, wrote a heart-felt letter to one of her employees who just recently gave birth to her first child, sharing her first-hand experience of being a mother (of three) and successful Intel employee. In honor of Mother’s Day, we’d like to share the letter with you and wish all of the mothers out there a very Happy Mother’s Day!

Dear Krista:

True story. In 1993, I applied for a job at Intel. (Yes, I know you were about 12 then.) One of the people who interviewed me was an engineer. At some point, she asked me if I had children. Probably not an OK question, in retrospect, but I answered it.

She then explained to me that Intel was an intense, rigorous and demanding culture that was a much better fit for childless professionals like her and her husband, also an Intel engineer. It was not, she strongly suggested, the right place for a woman with two young children. Like me.

I took the hint, and the job at the other company.

Later, when I had another child, I figured I’d kissed any possible Intel future goodbye. If two kids were a disadvantage, surely three were a deal breaker.

Yet 20 years later, here I am, badge around my neck, accomplished AR tamer, seasoned slayer of acronyms. While Intel has indeed proven to be a demanding place to work these last seven years, it’s also, to my enormous relief, a generous and supportive environment where working mothers can thrive.

It’s been a place where I regained my financial footing after a divorce; a place where I’ve been privileged to know and work with people like you. A place where my detours as a stay-at-home mom and part-time employee haven’t kept me from a career path that has exceeded my expectations.

In just a couple of weeks, your maternity leave is going to be over. Instead of spending weekdays with your beautiful baby girl, you’ll spend them with co-workers (who, while less entrancing, have arguably better language skills). And even though you know she’ll be in good hands, I’d bet you’re dreading the transition from full-time mom to working mom. I know I did.

It won’t be easy. It’s not easy working at Intel, and it’s not easy raising a child. In both roles, we aim high and sometimes we stumble. We second guess ourselves something terrible. We are never quite caught up. We worry —oh boy, do we worry. Being a working parent means having good days when it feels like you have the best of both worlds, and bad days when it does not.

But it helps, a lot, that the Intel village you’re returning to is better equipped and more dedicated than ever to help you manage both your thrilling new role as a mom and the job you’re so good at. And your manager (moi) and your team are standing by to help in any way we can.

Your first Mother’s Day as a mom is this weekend; it’ll be my 25th (my firstborn even arrived on Mother’s Day). As I marvel—a little wistfully, a little been-there-done-THAT—at the adventure ahead of you, I can’t help but reflect on some stuff I’ve learned, mostly the hard way.

Get over being Supermom. Fast. There aren’t bonus points—this isn’t that kind of a game. Ask for help when you’re overwhelmed, time when you’re short, a favor when you need it.

Don’t wait for permission. Do what you need to do, and don’t apologize.

Once you’ve survived a long flight with a screaming child, screaming stakeholders are a piece of cake.

Email is eternal. Childhood is not. Seize the spontaneous moment with your child.

Stay playful. If you turn into a stressball, everyone around you will be miserable too. During the rough patches, take a deep breath, exhale, and remind yourself that this too will pass. Shake it off, smile, laugh if you can. Then book a massage.

Set boundaries. You will teach your child that no means no. This applies to managers and colleagues as well.

You set the tone. If your daughter sees that you like your work, she will too. If you believe your work is simply time away from her, she’ll believe that too.

Later, when she’s older, tell her about your challenges at work, and your wins. Let her feel, and share in, your pride. She’ll be proud too.

There will be days when it will be impossible to be both the outstanding employee and the outstanding parent you want to be. It is. On those days, accept that good enough really is good enough.

Take notes. When you’re immersed in parenting, you think you’ll never forget the daily routines, the frustrations and pleasures of every stage and age. You will.

In your work life there will be tough periods and difficult co-workers. In your family life these are called “adolescence” and “teenagers.” You will survive both.

Dinner. I never really solved this one. I am a fan of crockpots, however.

You can be anyone’s employee. Only you can be your someone’s mom. Prioritize accordingly.

OK, one last story. One day when my daughter was about four years old, she was playing with some plastic animals. She marched them along the back of the couch where I was sitting. “You never know when pandas are going to come into your world,” she informed me.

How right she was.

Happy Mother’s Day, my friend. And welcome back—we’ve missed you!

Jan

Happy Mother’s Day to all moms! If you’ve got a tip for Krista or other new moms, please share it in comments below.

]]>Intel Employees: A Special Tribute to a Special Teammatehttp://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2013/04/25/intel-employees-a-special-tribute-to-a-special-teammate/
http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2013/04/25/intel-employees-a-special-tribute-to-a-special-teammate/#commentsThu, 25 Apr 2013 20:43:15 +0000http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/?p=1954Note from the editor: You hear from me quite a bit, whether it’s through a blog post or as a response to a comment or an introduction to a guest blogger, but you don’t hear from two of my teammates … Read more >

]]>Note from the editor: You hear from me quite a bit, whether it’s through a blog post or as a response to a comment or an introduction to a guest blogger, but you don’t hear from two of my teammates who work tirelessly behind this blog and the Jobs at Intel website to ensure that you have a great experience. My teammates, Teresa and Christine, are the magicians behind the curtain—you don’t see them but they do A LOT of the work to keep the sites running. Today’s guest blogger is Teresa, the Web Product snad Services Manager for Intel’s Talent Enabling Solutions team aka she’s the magic behind our online employer presence. There are lots of different stages to your career: joining a company, getting new managers, transferring to a different group, growing in your role, being promoted, taking a lateral move, and leaving. People leave for different reasons, in this case, it’s one that we’re jealous of—retirement in Florida to pursue a different life adventure. Teresa has written a special post for Christine as she retires from Intel and starts her next life adventure. From all of us bloggers, contributors, viewers, and users—congratulations Christine! All the best with the new endeavor!

At Intel we have a term—‘Great Place to Work’ (GPTW). It’s also one of our values. Each year we get a new badge calendar and on the flip side are listed the Intel values. GPTW lists bullets like Win and Have Fun and Work as a Team with Respect and Trust. I’ve worked for Intel 20 years now – I’m an ol’timer. I’m also kind of a sap, because when introducing myself in meetings or at conferences I also add “…and I’ve loved every minute!”—and though I created this blog, this is my first time contributing to it. I wanted to write a love letter of sorts but first I need to give a bit of background.

I’ve learned a lot about Intel and its culture over the years. At first I remember feeling like a fish out of water. There are so many brilliant and talented people that at first I was intimated. But it was because of those brilliant and talented people that I was pushed into the deep water. I raised my hand to work on a new project and my management team said, ‘go for it’ and off I went. My project was that new “internet-web-thingy” and how would our Staffing team get on this “World Wide Web”. We wanted to market Intel jobs to the public in the new and exciting way. We had no idea what we were doing. I had no idea what I was doing. We put together a one pager that was really only a graphic – I pressed the ENTER key and off we went. It was 1994 – eons ago in the Internet age. I was hooked! Our site grew into our global corporate Jobs at Intel site. We’ve added bells and whistles; tried all the fads and marketing tricks. Some worked – some tanked. I’ve worked on this site for most of my Intel career as developer, architect, and designer. I feel very maternal really. My goal has always been to show the world what it’s like to work at Intel and to grow a rewarding career – just like I’ve been able to do.

Along the way I’ve worked with several talented Content Editors/Managers. These are the people that write all the words that express to our visitors what Intel is really all about. At times I’ve worked with teams of people; at other times just one person. We partner with subject matter experts (SME) all over the globe who provide content. We also work with our college, business, HR and diversity teams assisting in getting their marketing campaigns, content and jobs out to the world. Social media and mobile are new areas for us and we are learning everyday what works and what doesn’t. Content comes from every country we hire in and it is the job of the Content Editor to make it all come together and to make sure it sounds good. It’s a tough job – challenging, stressful, but extremely rewarding as well.

Now here’s my love letter…

For the past seven years I’ve worked with Christine. She came to the job with a lot of questions, much stress and a dose of trepidation. She didn’t know if she could do the job and she worried it was too large for just one editor. I showed her around the house – where all the rooms were, where to find the life vest. I promised her that I would have her back and talk her down from the ledge if needed. I loved the job and I needed a strong editor to partner with who loved the work as well. I wanted her to succeed in every way. And succeed she did. Christine held her nose and jumped in the deep end with me. She managed a global stakeholder team, designed a work request process, juggled dozens of content projects and began the task of making the Jobs at Intel website world-class. Every word on our website was written or edited by Christine. I do the pretty pictures but content is king! She takes the messages we want to convey, along with the SMEs content and writes it in the Intel voice so that our visitors can get a feel for what it may be like to work for Intel. Every word.

On Friday, Christine is retiring from Intel. She found a beautiful stretch of beach and she and her husband will be planting their future in the sand. I’m losing my partner. My emotions are so extremely mixed. I’m so happy for her – so excited that she is finding her dreams coming true. But I’m also so sad because she has made my work life so much fun. Bouncing our creative energy around and then watching it come to life on the webpage has been so rewarding. It’s been like a marriage. We have trust, we communicate, and we voice our opinions – go a bit mad at times but always come up with a solution. And we laugh. Christine is the kind of person that has 20 windows opened at the same time; she’s conversing with two people on IM while talking on the phone. (Her desktop looks like my real hubby’s garage [sorry sweetie, but it’s true]). At first I thought “Geez, how can you get anything done?” But this is how Christine works. Her brain is a file cabinet, and she can easily move from file to file. It’s amazing really. She can find any file going back years. Amazing.

She is also so creative. What I like the most is she makes me better. She pushes me to find solutions, find a way to express what our customers need in new and exciting ways. She reminds me to breathe when the days are full and the schedule dates are looming. She is the Ying to my Yang, my Opus, my Thelma, my Snoopy – she’s jelly and I’m the peanut butter. I do love her and will remember my years working with her as the best (so far).

We don’t always give thanks. We forget to recognize. Even at Intel, thank you is not always stated because the work speaks for us. But I wanted a way to say “Thank you” that would really convey my gratitude. Oh sure there’s going to be a party, laughs will be had, margaritas will be drunk, and hugs will be exchanged. We will toast and we will laugh. (I’ll cry later.)Her friends will gather and we will send her off well. But this is my way of sharing my gratitude and recognition in a way that would be truly unique—and what better way than to do it through a project that we both worked on together and one that would share her legacy for the world to see!

On behalf of Intel, I want to say Thank You Christine! I have had so much fun working with you. Thank you for the respect and the trust. Thanks for thinking of our visitors first and trying always to provide the best possible experience. Thank you for your skill, your partnership and for your passion for the job. It was so appreciated. I wish you and Jeff the greatest happiness as you journey onward. Our “marriage” may be over, but our friendship is lifelong.

YOU are the reason Intel is a Great Place to Work!

You’ve heard it before, but here’s the proof. People truly are Intel’s greatest asset and the reason why many of us come into work everyday.

]]>http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2013/04/25/intel-employees-a-special-tribute-to-a-special-teammate/feed/5From Collecting Coffee Beans to Advising the Governmenthttp://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2013/04/11/from-collecting-coffee-beans-to-advising-the-government/
http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2013/04/11/from-collecting-coffee-beans-to-advising-the-government/#commentsThu, 11 Apr 2013 14:38:31 +0000http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/?p=1938Note from the editor: Every Intel employee has a story behind their career path and how they got to where they are. Today we bring you Carlos’s story which is not only about his Intel career, but how he went … Read more >

]]>Note from the editor: Every Intel employee has a story behind their career path and how they got to where they are. Today we bring you Carlos’s story which is not only about his Intel career, but how he went from collecting coffee beans in Costa Rica to advising the Costa Rican government.

It is noon on Friday and we just finished one of four sessions to train seven people from Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry from the Costa Rican Government, aka MEIC. I feel a sense of pride and happiness, because this Intel volunteer activity (just one part of a larger project that a team has been working on for over a year) will not only benefit a community, it will benefit a whole country, my country.

The training included basic tools and knowledge in Project Management. By holding this training with this government team, they’ll be able to use what they learned to improve Business Process Management as a strategy, allowing my country to reduce its bureaucracy, be more competitive worldwide and make it more attractive for foreign investment.

But how did I get to this point of influence? That is a story that starts back in my hometown, Naranjo in the province of Alajuela, when I was a teenager.

When I was 12 years old, I was in my third year of high school and during a class break I asked myself,”What do I want to do with my life from this date to the future?” I set a few goals for myself at that point, the four most relevant for my professional development were: to get a technical degree as Electrician, the second to get a bachelor degree on electronics, the third one to work on a company that would allow me to grow professionally and the last one to live in another country with different culture and different language with my family, working there and being successful on that experience. I said, “If I can complete all of them (four professional and four personal goals) by the time I’m 60 years old, I’d consider myself a successful person.”

The first step: register in a technical high school to get the title of Electricity Technician. To do that, I had to leave the comfort zone of living under my parents´ protection. I had to move and live in another city.

The next two steps came together: working and save money to pay for part of the tuition fees to study Electronics Engineering at Technical Institute from Costa Rica (ITCR). This, in my opinion, is the best public university for the career in engineering I wanted to pursue and I was right–it opened many doors for me.

As an engineer, I was able to achieve another goal: to fly on an airplane and visitdifferent countries. As a child, this idea seemed impossible because I came from a poor family. My mother worked as a seamstress at home to help earning extra money to raise three boys, my two brothers and me. My father worked at a local gas station but his earnings were not enough for our family. That is why my brothers and I decided to work at a coffee plantation during our vacations around the sunny seasons, collecting ripe coffee beans to earn money to pay for our books, notebooks, uniforms and all the materials we’d need and use during the school year. All of that taught us the value of honest work, saving money and defining priorities for life.

I achieved my last goal when I started working at Intel in 2004. More than just visiting, I wanted to live in another country, immerse myself in a different culture with a foreign language and to do this with my family and while being successful during that experience. This goal was accomplished in two steps. The first one allowed my family and me to live in Santa Clara, California for little longer than than 6 months. And what an amazing experience it was! My children went to public schools there and learned the basics and fundamentals of the English language. However this was just preparation for what I considered was the true achievement of my goal. Three months after returning from California, my manager asked me to move to Israel for a year with my family.

I still remember my kids’ faces when we arrived at the airport in Israel. Everything everywhere was written in Hebrew and we did not know even know how to say “hello” in Hebrew! If that was hard, just imagine the experience going to the supermarket and trying to buy groceries!

However with time, we learned. We were able to visit many places. We learned bits of Hebrew and were able to make basic requests at stores, pharmacies, etc. We even crossed the border during our time in Israel and went to Jordan to visit Petra, one of the new Seven Wonders of the World. My kids attended the unique English school available in Israel, but to do that I had to drive 160 Km a day to go to Intel´s site in Haifa from our house located close to Tel Aviv in a placed called Kfar Shmariahu. The technical knowledge I picked up during my time in Israel made me grow to a point where I could participate in several Intel conferences, allowing me to visit other continents and countries and earning significant awards at those conferences as well.

When we returned back from those assignments, I was just 33 years old and I had accomplished all my major goals. Wow. So there I was leaving my comfort zone, I sat to rethink my life, again.

That’s when, using the scholarship that Intel gave me, I was able pursue a master’s degree in Project Management from a private university. After getting my master’s degree, I joined the team in charge of understanding how to implement Business Process Management (BPM) in my department at the time, Quality and Reliability. Soon after, I took the leadership of that team and led my own managers and department to get BPM certification following a Project Management structure. Last year I moved to Technical Training Department, where I made significant changes in the courses we offer technician’s at Intel’s Costa Rica factory to empower them to increase their knowledge in different technical areas. In tandem, I started working as a professor a few years ago, teaching Project Management at the same university I got my Master’s degree.

Using the set of skills I developed from Project Management, Business Process Management, teaching experience and my desire to grow, I joined the volunteer team working with MEIC. Now I lead one of the sub teams, the one that teaches how by using PM and BPM, we can make a better country. That’s how I’ve gotten to where I am today—only time will tell what growth and opportunities the future will bring.

]]>http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2013/04/11/from-collecting-coffee-beans-to-advising-the-government/feed/6The Inside Scoop on Intel Costa Ricahttp://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2013/03/21/the-inside-scoop-on-intel-costa-rica/
http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2013/03/21/the-inside-scoop-on-intel-costa-rica/#commentsThu, 21 Mar 2013 13:52:19 +0000http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/?p=1919Note from the editor: Misconceptions can be funny sometimes. You think you know something and then all of a sudden, boom, your world is changed! Today’s guest blogger, José Julián, aka JJ, has gone through the experience many times when … Read more >

]]>Note from the editor: Misconceptions can be funny sometimes. You think you know something and then all of a sudden, boom, your world is changed! Today’s guest blogger, José Julián, aka JJ, has gone through the experience many times when people ask him about working at Intel. JJ is currently the Lab Systems Manager at Intel Costa Rica. He holds an Electrical Engineering degree and an MBA with emphasis on Operations Management. In his spare time, you can find him playing at local clubs and restaurants or making music with his friends and family.

Me: Yup that’s the one; the computer chip company. We make the components that make computers work and run the internet.

John Doe: Hmm sounds cool. But what’s it like to work there?

Me: What do you think it’s like?

John Doe: I’ve heard it’s really hard work.

Me: Really? How so?

John Doe: Well, it is long hours of repetitive manual labor… kind of like a textile assembly plant… you know? Don’t you get bored?

Me: (insert chuckle and amused laugh) That’s what you think goes on at Intel?

John Doe: That’s the word on the street.

Me: Well first let me tell you that work at Intel is far from repetitive and boring. We’re in the computer electronics and semiconductor industry. Things here move extremely fast. One day you’re working on the latest generation of desktop and server microprocessors, monitoring production quality, solving complex technical problems applying statistical methods, Lean Six Sigma methods or analyzing semiconductor defects using state of the art architecture simulators, testing equipment and electron microscopes that no one else in Latin America has access to. The next day you’re on a plane flying to the USA or Asia to live and work on the development of the next generation processors, side by side with people from all nationalities, cultures and backgrounds such as engineers, chemists, physicists, designers, architects, etc. Still sounds boring?

John Doe: Wow! I had no idea you guys did all that!

Me: Yeah, all that and then some. I work in the Quality and Reliability Failure Analysis labs for example. We support the manufacturing process and make sure all our products go out the door exceeding industry standards for Quality and Reliability. We’re the gate keepers and brand ambassadors if you will.

John Doe: So what exactly do you do?

Me: Let me see… how I can put this in simple terms… Our group is like the CSI team, you know the one on the TV show?

John Doe: Oh yeah!! The guys that have to figure out why and how someone was killed and then catch the bad guy so it doesn’t happen again.

Me: That’s the one. Just change the deceased person for a computer chip, but the rest of it is pretty much the same. We get to play detective, use a bunch of fancy gadgets, catch the culprit and implement corrective actions to avoid reoccurrence. Well maybe just take away the fancy car chases and the guns.

John Doe: Man, that’s awesome! So what type of people work there?

Me: All sorts of people with different backgrounds; engineers and scientists mostly but we also have marketers, HR professionals, finance types—there are lots of different career paths at Intel. Beyond your degree we look for people that are passionate about innovation; entrepreneurs and creative types that can spot a problem and use innovative methods to solve them. Being fluent in English is also a must. Remember the part where we get on planes to work in the US and Asia? I lived 2 years in the US working with designers in Oregon, California and Arizona and I also lived in Malaysia for a year to learn new failure analysis techniques to implement back home in Costa Rica.

John Doe: Malaysia! That must have been something!

Me: You bet! Since then I’ve been to China, Vietnam, Singapore, Thailand, and Taiwan, all with Intel. You can’t say you know about a culture until you’ve sat down to have lunch at a downtown market, eating foods whose names you can’t pronounce and swapping stories with a local about how different or similar your childhoods were. This one time I even got invited to their wedding to play guitar and sing at their reception party.

John Doe: You did all that?

Me: True story. With Intel I’ve been able to travel the world and grow not only as a professional but as a person. And for that I’m grateful. Sure it’s demanding and high paced, but it has its rewards. Did I ever think I’d be on a stage in Vietnam singing to a bunch of people I didn’t know? Never in my dreams! But that’s the thing with Intel. If you have passion and are disciplined, the sky’s the limit. I formed a band with my co-workers back home and we play at local functions, for example. So I can be a musician and an engineer at the same time.

John Doe: So how did you join Intel?

Me: I worked with Intel even before I worked at Intel. Back in 1999 I was taking my final college courses in Electrical Engineering when we were invited to the university’s auditorium to attend an exposition by Intel recruiting. I attended the exposition and liked what I heard. That led to a field trip to their manufacturing plant and as soon as I walked through the front lobby I knew that is where I wanted to work. That field trip led to an internship position to work on a robotics project where I was in charge of developing a small robot handler to perform remote testing of parts over the internet. Oh, and the robot had to be operated from Costa Rica to run tests in the USA or Malaysia. After 6 months of hard work, I had a working system and next thing I know I’m on a plane to Oregon to install the thing. Shortly after that experience, I was formally hired as a full time Failure Analysis engineer where for 5 years I worked solving complex cases and learning as much as I could from peers all over the world. Remember my 3 years abroad in the US and Malaysia? In 2008 I went on to take a management position within the Quality and Reliability labs where I’m in charge of Operations, maintenance, thermo-mechanical stress, calibration and electro static discharge services. It’s demanding and dynamic but I also have the possibility to give back to the community through volunteer work. I started out as an intern, and over the last 13 years I’ve been a mentor to 8 different students. I also volunteer as judge at regional and national science fairs and then mentor the students that go on to compete (and win!) at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.

John Doe: So it’s nothing like they say it is then?!

Me: I’m glad you got a better picture of what we do. So, you know anyone interested in working with us?

If you or someone you know is interested in joining our Intel team, check out our open positions at www.intel.com/jobs If you’d like to learn more about our culture, expore our Life at Intel site or connect with us on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to get the latest news about the company, our people and our culture.

]]>http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2013/03/21/the-inside-scoop-on-intel-costa-rica/feed/1Who Will Win the Intel Factor Film Cup? Help Decide!http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2013/02/27/who-will-win-the-intel-factor-film-cup-help-decide/
http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2013/02/27/who-will-win-the-intel-factor-film-cup-help-decide/#commentsThu, 28 Feb 2013 04:58:06 +0000http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/?p=1877It turns out that our Interns & Student Workers across the Latin America region are pretty active and they like the spotlight. So we decided to channel their creativity into a special contest: introducing the Intel Factor Film Cup! The … Read more >

]]>It turns out that our Interns & Student Workers across the Latin America region are pretty active and they like the spotlight. So we decided to channel their creativity into a special contest: introducing the Intel Factor Film Cup!

The rules were simple: create a video that shows what life at Intel is like—and if you inspire some people along the way, that’s cool, too. All the teams had to use their own equipment, scripts, and music.

Challenge accepted.

These videos star our own interns and student workers across Latin America. From great programmers to social media experts to finance to HR and everything in between,, you will find some great minds with amazing passionate hearts who just love to make tomorrow a better day.

Now we need your help! Who will win the Intel Factor Film Cup? Your votes will decide!

Check out the 5 videos below and vote your favorite by “Liking” it on our YouTube channel. The winning team not only gets the glory of being the first winners of this contest, but we’ll hook them up with an Intel-powered tablet so they can keep on capturing and sharing their adventures from where ever they are! Remember to vote by Friday, March 8th, 2013! The contest ends at 3pm PST.

]]>http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2013/02/27/who-will-win-the-intel-factor-film-cup-help-decide/feed/4Generations of Intel, Employees That Ishttp://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2013/02/05/generations-of-intel-employees-that-is/
http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2013/02/05/generations-of-intel-employees-that-is/#commentsTue, 05 Feb 2013 14:59:00 +0000http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/?p=1858Guest blogger: Nisha is from Intel’s Internal Employee Communications Team Photos provided by the Intel employees profiled in the article Can you imagine working across the aisle from your brother? Accidentally receiving your son’s email? Or how about fielding action … Read more >

]]>Guest blogger: Nisha is from Intel’s Internal Employee Communications Team

Photos provided by the Intel employees profiled in the article

Can you imagine working across the aisle from your brother? Accidentally receiving your son’s email? Or how about fielding action items that were intended for your sister? For some Intel employees, work doesn’t just follow them home—home follows them to work. We talked to five employees from around the world who shared stories about what it’s like to work at the same company as a family member.

What’s the best part of having a family member who also works at Intel?

Ghery (bottom) works as a regulatory compliance manager in the Technology Manufacturing Group (TMG) and his son (also named Ghery) works in the server performance lab. They both live in Dupont.

Ghery: Confusing people is fun, especially when you have the same name. My son has been a blue badge (full-time Intel employee) since April, but he’s been here as a green badge (contractor) for the last 10-plus years. And I remember one time his manager at the time accidentally put my e-mail address in a distribution list, and I was in Oregon that day, so my out-of-office agent bounced it. And I get a message back from the manager saying, you’re supposed to check with me before you go to Oregon. So I was left with, okay. How do I politely tell him to get lost without getting my son in trouble? No, I don’t have to check with you. You’ve got the wrong one.

Medha (right) and her sister Mugdha both work on Ivy Bridge-based servers and sit just a few cubes away from each other in Santa Clara.

Medha: My sister and I get kicks out of confusing people. We’ve got similar first names and the same last name and we work in the same group. People walk down the aisle, and they’re like, oh my God, you are two different people? We’re not even twins, and when we were growing up, we looked really different. So, yeah, it’s a lot of fun. Some bright spots when you’re working so hard.

Bill: I think probably the most fun part is connecting with other folks in the organization. It’s always nice to hear how well [your brother] is doing, or how he’s helped. It’s always kind of fun when I’m in a meeting and someone says “The expert on this is your brother, right?”

And of course that opens up the door to take your pot shots at your brother. To be like that guy, he really gave you a good recommendation? So you get to tease him a bit, which is nice.

Bill (left) is a principal engineer in IT and has two brothers, Kent and Michael, who also work in IT in Hillsboro.

Another thing that is nice—because we’re all based in Hillsboro—somebody will catch a Great Place To Work event, sign up, and we’ll end up going to those things as a mini extended-family event, whether it’s at the Coliseum, or the movies. Essentially Intel is paying for your family to go out.

Has there ever been a time when you wished that you didn’t work at the same company, and why?

Medha: I worked for two different companies before I moved to Intel. I avoided coming here for four years because growing up, people treated me and my sister like the same person and I didn’t want that again. But then I couldn’t help it—Intel’s the right place to be right now.

Vishal (left) works on hardware graphics design in Bangalore, India. His brother, Vik, is located halfway around the world in Folsom and also works on hardware design.

Vishal: With another family member working for the same company, you can’t bluff the rest of your family about how hard you work or how tough your job is. There’s always a second perspective.

Bill: It’s certainly harder to disconnect from work. When we’re at family gatherings, we have to catch ourselves. Our mom and wives and siblings say ‘Stop talking Intel!”

Medha: At one point, until last year, my husband worked at Intel as well. So there were three family members working at Intel, and my poor brother-in-law would be like, okay, now maybe I should just join Intel, so we can all talk Intel stuff.

What’s the funniest Intel-related story that you tell that involves your sibling?

Vishal: Before my brother was at Intel, he used to always tease me about going to the BUM (Business Update Meeting) and ask me “Who’s BUM did you go to today?’ since the word has another funny meaning. But now we both go to BUMs.

Medha: When I first joined Intel, people would see my sister, and they would start asking her about the deliverables, and she would be like, “Do I know you? What’s going on?” I think it took a few months for people to realize that we are not the same person.

Now I’m on the same project as her, and our cubes are close together, so if one of us is talking, and the other person’s talking at the same time, it’s like a stereo effect. It’s pretty funny.

Kathi (left) works in HR in Munich, Germany; her sister, Eva, works at the same site in a different HR group.

Kathi: My sister and I have different last names so people don’t really know we’re related. I have pictures of my nephew and my niece, my sister’s children. And sometimes people ask me if they are mine and notice that they look so much like the photos in the cube a few aisles down. I say, it’s the same children, but down there is the mom and I’m just the auntie.

Bill: I think there have been times where, given you work in the same organization, you get an email, and you don’t realize that it’s actually not for you. My younger brother took over an area that I used to own, around architecture definition, and so I get replied back to an email I received on the topic. I thought, “Maybe it’s a ‘you never leave your old job’ type of thing.” So I gave pretty detailed direction on what should happen from an architecture strategy perspective, and turns out it wasn’t even directed to me.

Did one family member help the other one get a job?

Medha: My sister didn’t help me get my job, but she definitely eased my ramp-up in this project, because she’s been there, she knows the people. It definitely helped. And I know she’s going to give me advice on what I need to do, what I should be doing, what I could do better, and I’m pretty sure it’s going to continue for the rest of my life. The latest one [piece of advice] was, oh, when you write an e-mail, you may want to change the font, so it looks a little more professional. Believe me, I’m not a junior engineer. But I get advice like that.

Ghery: I didn’t have to help my son get a job, because he was already working here 10 years as a green badge. But when I found out that they had created a [blue-badge] req and he was supposed to apply, I was the typical parent, gave him a good swift kick in the rear end, and told him to get going.

Vishal: I would have loved to help my brother find a job, so that I got the referral bonus [laughs]. He found other friends in Intel to refer his resume. And in a way it was good, because if I were to forward a resume, I would have done it in a biased way and suggested joining certain groups.

Kathi: When I started, my sister helped me understand the acronyms. When you don’t want to ask your colleagues around you, it is just easier to get information from your sibling. And what she also helped me explain how things like SPP [stock purchase plan] work. If you ask someone who works on SPP how it works, the explanation sometimes can be confusing, and if you have no clue about it, then it’s easier if someone you know explains it to you in plain English.

Does it help to have someone else in your family understand all those Intelisms, things like constructive criticism, ARs, work weeks? Do you talk in that language at home?

Bill: Probably more often than we should. I mean, it is nice to be able bounce things off each other. Like if I’ve got a proposal going at senior staff, I can ask them what’s your perspective coming from a different part of the business.

Kathi: It helps a lot. Most of my family all work for German companies, which is very different than Intel. And no one understands the words if I say something about work. No one. It’s just my sister who would understand me, and she would be nodding and saying, oh, yeah, you had a hard day. And my family is just sitting there and looking at me like I’m talking Chinese. So it’s really helpful sometimes.

Bill: Given that me and my two brothers are all in IT now, over the last few years there’s been a lot more inadvertent e-mail coming our way. And so what we attach now in response is just a footer that says, Thank you for using the Giard Routing Excellence And Technical System (GREAT System, or GreatSys for short). We work hard to provide you with a stable messaging system with full redundancy. Our features include multiple email systems for MBC (messaging business continuity), service with a smile, and free car washes from the youngest infrastructure component (aka Mike).

]]>http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2013/02/05/generations-of-intel-employees-that-is/feed/12How the Intel Tablet Smart Squad Came to Be and What It Can Do For You!http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2013/01/07/how-the-intel-tablet-smart-squad-came-to-be-and-what-it-can-do-for-you/
http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/2013/01/07/how-the-intel-tablet-smart-squad-came-to-be-and-what-it-can-do-for-you/#commentsMon, 07 Jan 2013 17:59:23 +0000http://blogs.intel.com/jobs/?p=1840Note from the editor: There was a new star at the holiday parties I went to this year, besides the food that is. It was my Intel Tablet! You see, I was tapped to join the Intel Tablet Smart Squad … Read more >

]]>Note from the editor: There was a new star at the holiday parties I went to this year, besides the food that is. It was my Intel Tablet! You see, I was tapped to join the Intel Tablet Smart Squad in November to try out the device and share my experience AND I got a Windows 8* tablet to keep as part of my participation on the team. Pretty cool, huh? There’s more to Intel’s tablet story and more to the Tablet Squad, so I went straight to the source and asked one of the minds behind the squad, Scott, to share the concept behind the Tablet Squad and what we can do for you! Scott is the Head of Buzz Marketing for New Business in our Corporate Marketing Group. He’s been with Intel for a year and a half, coming from a text message start-up, HookUp Feed. In his current role, he’s taking on the challenge of informing, educating and connecting with consumers using scrappy, grassroots socially charged programs vs. traditional marketing. Since launching the Tablet Smart Squad, he’s found himself in one of the most unselfish roles of his life (next to being a loving husband and father). His entire focus is to ensure the Smart Squad team members have all of the necessary training, tools, resources, and creative opportunities all focusing on the end goal: education. Second to that, making sure we’re all having fun! Follow Scott on Twitter, @scott_jaworski, to learn more about what he’s doing and to hear more about Intel Tablets!

I’ve heard it all before—marketing is fun and cool but I want to focus on technology. Is it really possible to do both? You mean have my cake and eat it to? I love marketing and I love technology. How many jobs out there do you think allow you to do both? There are many reasons why these seemingly simple questions pose a true challenge. Most will have a certain level of educational focus or experience swaying you to one side or the other or you may live in an area with a shortage of technology based companies.

After receiving any job offer its common (and best) practice to make your list of pros/cons. After all, you need to learn about the company as much (if not more) than they learn about you. Work ethic, rapport with interviewers, industry, and location should all be top of mind when evaluating a position. Thankfully, Intel was capable of crossing all of these off my list with high marks. How does this tie back to having my cake and eating it to?

Having been with Intel for just over a year, I feel I’ve personally made it through the “learning curve” and I’ve been told that I have acclimated exceptionally well – remember this is a 100,000+ global tech company. What aided this success AND provided me and others the ability to have our cake and eat it too is my involvement as one of the lead drivers of the Intel Tablet Smart Squad.

The Tablet Smart Squad was created to help educate consumers in an effort to simplify their decision making during the purchase experience for tablets. Come again? You know that techy friend you call before you buy any new electronics? Or maybe you have a friend who’s really into cars and your go-to for any automative advice. We wanted to do the same thing, but with tablets. We created the Tablet Smart Squad to give people who were thinking about buying a tablet (and even some who weren’t thinking about it) access to PEOPLE that could help them decide what tablet would work for them. Does that sound fun and cool? Maybe, maybe not. If you keep reading, I’ll guarantee you will think it is!( I apologize that this was written using more than 140 characters, but it’s worth it.)

Who, where, how is the Smart Squad making it happen? Hint: this is where it gets cool.

The Smart Squad is open to all employees to join and is currently comprised of approx. 255 Intel employees (and growing every day) from a diverse set of backgrounds, business units, locations and levels of expertise. All Smart Squad participants were provided product, messaging and social media training. Intel even went to the extent of providing 1/3 of these participants with tablets for their own use and to aid in the online conversation, education and awareness this team is driving all with the hashtag – #IntelTablets. Check out the hashtag on your favorite social networks like Twitter and Instagram and you’ll get a feel for what the smart squad has done. From #TabletTipTuesday to sharing photos of how they use tablets to help with their every day life to creating videos to show you some of the bells and whistles their tablets have to boiling it down to their new favorite (addictive) games, the squad is made up of employees, just like you, who are testing their tablet limits to see what kind of fun (and sometimes trouble) they can get themselves into!

This my friends is how I and my colleagues were capable of having our cake and eating it to. It’s not often, if at all, that an organization will allow “non-marketers” the opportunity to facilitate a marketing function. In addition to providing new opportunities for veteran colleagues to learn a new skill and broaden their horizons while staying the course in their current role. As for me, yeah, I like cake, but I much prefer being directly responsible for the positive morale of my colleagues and helping our consumers.

Note: Scott and a few other Tablet Smart Squad members will be at CES this week showing off their tablets and answering questions. Follow the hashtag to see what they’re up to!